


Home Is When The Heart Is

by May_Seward



Series: Universal Constants [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Black Paladin Lance (Voltron), Blood and Torture, F/M, Future Character Death, Future Fic, Future Paladin Lotor, Future Voltron comes from about 18 years in the future, Its canon now lol do I even have to tag this?, M/M, No descriptions of it or anything, Parallel Universes, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Season/Series 04, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Season 5 and 6 spoilers in later chapters, Set between Seasons 3 and 4, Shhhhhh just hear me out okay, So sue me, Time Travel, also plot?, clone shiro - Freeform, minor adashi, tagged for major character death but the deaths themselves are only kinda mentioned abstractly?, time travel is confusing and complicated, wilful ignorance of sound scientific principles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-03-25 13:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13835823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Seward/pseuds/May_Seward
Summary: ‘I've never seen the real thing from the outside before.'‘Shiro! Are you guys seeing this? It's-’‘It's Voltron. How can it be Voltron?’When a routine mission goes awry, Team Voltron is saved by a very familiar robot face.These visitors from another reality seem to hold all the answers, even to the questions the Paladins never should have asked. While they work together with old friends (and old enemies), and discover new family, a dark cloud hangs over both teams, the future Voltron's conspicuously missing members at the forefront of everyone's minds...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT 16/01/2019: This work is now part of a series! Subscribe for updates!
> 
> I'm rush posting this because I have been sick today and I wanted to post the first chapter of this before Season 5 dropped and proved me wrong. 
> 
> This is actually a side project I'm working on in between uni and writing my crossover series "Say Hello to the Stars" which is a collaboration with my friend manmehakkaur. That means this is pretty much unbetaed, unedited and purely self-indulgent because I'm a sucker for time travel AUs and angst.
> 
> Spoilers in the end notes but I felt like I should explain the Major Character Death warning and give a run down to the future Voltron line-up so if you'd rather know these facts before reading, I'll put them down there.

They had seen neither hide nor hair of Prince Lotor in little over a month and Keith was starting to get antsy about it. Lotor’s sudden lack of activity set his teeth on edge. Whispers among the coalition said that he had been distracted by something. The others were not about to complain, but Keith didn’t trust it. If Lotor was distracted, it could only mean something big was coming.

Fighters swarmed the convoy. For once, Voltron was not their primary target, but that just made it more difficult. Attacking civilian refugees was a new low for the Galra empire, but Keith couldn't say he was surprised.

‘Keep the civilians out of the crossfire!’ Keith barked as Lance’s shot passed heart-stoppingly close to one of the transport ships.

‘I know what I'm doing Keith!’ Lance protested. ‘Sharpshooter, remember?’

Keith scowled. ‘I thought you were joking!’

‘Do I look like I'm joking?’ The Red Lion spun around to face him, just as Keith's sensors picked up something behind him. Red’s tail flicked up, aiming a beam of energy just above the Black Lion’s head. Keith swore and dove out of the way.

‘Keep it together, Paladins,’ Shiro barked over the comms. His face flashed onto Keith's screens, eyes stern and disapproving. ‘The Galra have backup on the way, so we need Allura back here to wormhole us out of here.’

Keith barely spared him a glance, diving forward to take out a swarm of fighters with Black’s jawblade. ‘We can't exactly spare Blue right now!’ he pointed out, throwing black in between the Galra drones and the nearest transports. ‘If we had a spare moment I'd be getting everyone to form Voltron, but if we do that, we'll be leaving the transports defenseless.’

‘You can't keep this fight up forever!’ Shiro snapped.

‘We won't have to!’ Lance interjected, taking out ten fighters with one sweep of his primary gun.

Keith hoped so. ‘Hunk!’ he called. ‘How are you and Pidge doing disabling those cruisers?’

‘We're almost there,’ Hunk reported. ‘One is down, one more to go.’

‘Make it quick,’ Keith ordered. ‘We got more incoming. Pidge! You get any sign of enemy reinforcements yet?’

‘I don't know!’ Pidge replied. ‘The scanners are freaking out! There's something wrong with the universal positioning network.’

‘You’re saying our space GPS isn't working?’ Lance deadpanned, diving out of the way of an incoming blast from one of the cruisers.

‘Exactly!’ Pidge exclaimed. ‘It thinks we're in two places at once and everyone is moving so fast it's hard to tell if the Galra cruiser I’m picking up is here or not! It could be halfway across the galaxy or it could be right on top of us!’

Keith growled. ‘Okay, Allura see if you can helps us out here.’

‘But the cruiser-’

‘Hunk can handle it!’ Keith spun Black around quickly, trying to get a feel for where everyone was. ‘Pidge will you be able to fix the problem if you get enough information to figure out which is our real position?’

‘I should do yeah! Allura, can you use your sonic scanning?’

Keith was distantly aware of Blue preparing to use her sonar, but he had too many things to worry about to wait for that to happen. He and Black cut through the enemy in swathes, heading for Hunk and the remaining cruiser. He dodged a blast from the cruiser’s main canon and rushed at it, ready to slice through the hull. The cruiser exploded and Keith quickly hit the reverse thrusters, shooting away from the wreckage as it blew through the vacuum.

‘Hunk, what did you do?’ Keith gasped, blinking the bright spots from his eyes.

‘Nothing!’ Hunk replied. His face appeared on screen, looking just as confused as Keith felt. ‘I was working on weakening the ion canon’s shielding when it blew.’

‘Guys! We have company!’

Shiro’s face reappeared just as Pidge exclaimed, ‘I fixed the problem!’

‘More Galra?’ Lance asked.

‘No,’ it was Pidge who answered, but she didn't need to. At that moment, Keith turned back to face the convoy to see a familiar shape looming above the transport ships, yellow cannon resting on one enormous shoulder.

‘What's going on?’ Hunk asked.

‘I've never seen the real thing from the outside before,’ Lance murmured in a quietly awed voice as the huge cannon glowed with with incoming charge.

‘Scatter!’ Keith ordered, diving towards the convoy. The rest followed suit as the cannon fired, scattering shots, each one finding it's mark and the remaining drones exploded one by one.

‘Shiro!’ Keith yelled over comms. ‘Are you guys seeing this? It's-’

‘It's Voltron,’ Pidge gasped. ‘How can it be Voltron?’

‘I think we know what was causing your scanner problems, Number Five,’ Coran appeared next to Shiro.

‘Yeah,’ Pidge whispered.

A voice Keith didn't immediately recognise came over the comms, authoritative, mature and masculine.

‘Attention Voltron, we're friendly, we promise. Boy, are we glad finally find you.’

After the day she’d had, Pidge would have been forgiven, she decided, for thinking she was seeing double. They made a decision to land in the communal hangar, a massive space that was designed to hold all sorts of ships of various sizes. It could, just about, fit ten Voltron lions.

Ten lions.

The implications made her head spin.

_ Her  _ Voltron, that is, Lance, Keith, Allura and Hunk all landed first and piled out of their lions to await the  _ other  _ Voltron, moments behind. The castle floor shuddered as they landed.

‘Princess!’ Shiro called as he came running into the cavernous room, Coran on his heels. ‘Did they say anything? Do we know who they are?’

Allura shook her head.

‘I think we're about to find out,’ Keith said, crossing his arms and glaring at the floor.

_ Paladin? _

In the back of her mind, Pidge felt a sudden push of consciousness, recognisably Green, and she let her in, surprised with the intensity of the force she used. Her mind flooded with impressions of surprise and the closest she had ever felt to joy coming from her lion.

_ Paladin! _

A squeal jolted Pidge out of the connection as the Blue Lion - the  _ other  _ Blue Lion - opened its mouth and it's paladin burst out, barrelling towards Shiro with a wordless cry and launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. Shiro stumbled under the force of it, reflexively wrapping his arms around the stranger to prevent them both from toppling to the floor.

‘Kira! Get back here!’ A very familiar voice called as the other Red Lion’s Paladin stepped out, removing her helmet.

Pidge gaped. She looked back at Allura, standing with the beginnings of tears in her eyes and her hands at her mouth, then back at the Red Paladin. She looked back at Allura then back again.

They were undeniably the same person.

The strange Blue Paladin released Shiro and darted back to the Red Paladin’s side. The other Allura was definitely older, her eyes surrounded by the first few fine lines and her face was thinner and sharper. Her hair was also shorter, short enough that the locks at the front floated around her face when she took her helmet off in wispy white clouds.

‘You boys coming out?’ the Blue Paladin called out. She was female and Pidge was certain she had never seen her before.

‘Sorry,’ The Black Paladin replied, stepping out. He was about as tall as Shiro and almost as broad, filling the Black Paladin’s armour perfectly. ‘I just... needed a moment.’

Pidge wasn't sure who she was expecting to be under the black helmet but it definitely hadn't been Lance.

It had been difficult to gauge the other Allura’s age because of how little Pidge really understood of the way Alteans aged, but the Black Paladin’s appearance was clear. He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, a heavy five o'clock shadow stubbling his jaw and a thin scar bisecting his upper lip on one side. His hair was short, but it stuck up now, rather than falling over his forehead and the first smattering of grey had taken root. It was even more shocking to see than Allura flying the Red Lion.

‘Holy quiznak,’ Lance - teenage Lance - murmured. ‘I don't believe it.’

‘Hi,’ the Black Paladin waved. ‘Sorry for the confusion, we were just trying to fix a problem with our scanners.'

‘I got it!’ a voice, recognizably Hunk’s voice, echoed from the Yellow Lion’s boarding ramp. At least some things don’t change. ‘It was easy once we all stopped moving.’ This Hunk was older too, bigger, more tired maybe, and sporting a horrendous goatee. Pidge barely stifled a snicker. ‘Oh,’ he said, stopping short as his eyes fell on Pidge. He only looked at her for a second before he deliberately turned away from her, eyes closed as his shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths.

Pidge looked over at the younger Hunk, who watched his older self with confusion. He glanced back at her and she sent him a  _ what the hell?  _ Look. He shrugged.  _ I don't know either. _

Older Hunk’s reaction to seeing her made her nervous and she craned her neck to see where the other Green Paladin was. Was she about to see an older version of herself? What would they look like? Why had the other Hunk reacted that way? Had their other versions had a falling out? Pidge couldn't imagine fighting with Hunk.

‘Well,’ said a voice as the Green Paladin finally emerged. Immediately, Keith had his bayard in hand. Pidge felt her stomach drop with dread as she summoned hers to her, all thoughts of her older self flying out of the airlock. ‘I can't say I'm glad to be back but it sure beats running from myself.’

Pidge had never seen Prince Lotor in real life, but the records she managed to find on him from searching through Galra servers gave her an idea of what he looked like. White hair, purple skin that looked strange wearing green armour, tall and surprisingly wiry like teenage Lance. His yellow-purple eyes surveyed the room, taking in Pidge’s version of Voltron, each with their weapons raised and waiting for him to make a move, and he  _ laughed. _

Pidge felt her blood run cold as Keith lunged. Adult Lance just stepped into Keith’s path like it was nothing, catching him around the shoulders to keep him from doing any damage.

‘I know what you all must be thinking,’ said the older Allura. ‘But if you just hear us out, we can explain.’

Lance couldn't stop staring at his own back as they moved through the castle towards the medical bay for their usual post-fight once-over. This man was  _ him  _ , older, beefed up and  _ the Black Paladin of Voltron  _ . It was almost enough to distract from the fact that older Keith wasn't with him, or Pidge or Shiro.

They reached the medical bay without a lot of talk, everyone still processing what was actually happening.

Once they stopped, however, Allura asked the obvious question. ‘Who are you?’

‘We are the Paladins of Voltron,’ Other Allura answered.

‘But  _ we _ are the paladins of Voltron,’ Keith said. Silence descended, like no one really knew what to say or where to start.

In the silence, Coran started with Hunk, since he was the least difficult to deal with, and Lance caught him glancing at the Blue Paladin with barely disguised awe.

She was Altean. It was obvious from the moment she removed her helmet and they could see her properly. Blue eyed with pink markings and long black hair. She was pretty, and maybe only a year or two younger than Lance.

‘Listen,’ Older Lance said. ‘We are from the future, but we don't really know how it happened. Trust me, transreality travel is not something we're strangers to, but time travel is new. We were hoping you could help us.’

‘Transreality travel...’ Pidge's brows furrowed as she thought. ‘Like the time we went to the alternate reality with the Alteans?’

Other Hunk frowned as if reliving a painful memory. ‘Yeah we've been back to that universe a few times.’

‘So... you could just be from an alternate reality that's a bit further ahead than ours is.’ Pidge guessed. ‘Matt and I used to talk about this sort of thing,’ she explained when many of the others sent her odd looks. ‘It's theoretically improbable that if alternate realities do exist, which we know they do, that they would all line up perfectly in a chronological way. Which means that if you were to travel between certain realities it would give the impression or illusion of travelling through time because the timelines are different.’

'We had a few theories along those lines, but Lotor is our resident expert on transreality travel so you should talk to him,' Older Lance conceded.

'Wait, hang on,’ Lance said, struggling to keep up. ‘Does that make us the same person or not?’

Lotor scoffed. ‘Well this time’s Lotor is definitely me so let's assume the answer is yes for all of you.’

Pidge looked up at that. ‘You're the reason Prince Lotor seems to have gone underground?’

‘He's been chasing us, yes,’ Other Allura confirmed. ‘We think we lost him a week or so ago and we've been looking for you ever since.’

‘How did you manage that?’ Hunk stood aside after getting the all clear.

‘There is one thing we have that you don't that helps with that,’ the Blue Paladin smirked.

Lotor waved with a pointed smile that made Lance supremely uncomfortable. ‘Hello.’

‘How do we know we can trust you?’ Shiro asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

‘Of course you can trust us!’ the Altean laughed. ‘Half of us are you.’

‘And what about the other half?’ Pidge demanded. ‘What happened to the rest of us in your timeline?’

Other Lance and Other Hunk shared a look Lance really didn't want to read into. Other Allura and the young Altean frowned, wearing almost identical expressions. Even Lotor looked uncomfortable.

‘We're dead,’ Keith filled in for them. ‘Aren't we?’

Older Lance looked at Keith with an expression regular Lance could only describe as  _ desolate  _ . ‘I’m sorry.’

Lance felt his heart drop through the floor.   _  No  _ .

‘How... how long?’ it was Hunk.

The question was directed at his older self but once again Lance answered. ‘For us, Pidge has been... gone for nearly a year. Keith... closer to seventeen.’

_ Seventeen years. _

‘How?’ Pidge asked and she directed this one at Older Hunk too.

‘You don't want to know,’ Lotor answered. ‘The less we say about it the better.’

Keith’s fists were clenched at his sides, but his expression was astonishingly calm. ‘What about Shiro?’

‘He's alive,’ the Altean answered. She looked at Shiro with a strange sort of sadness to her expression. ‘He’s... okay.’

Other Allura nodded. ‘Our Shiro... retired.’

‘That still sounds ominous,’ Hunk muttered. Lance had to agree with that.

‘No!’ the Altean raised her hands in a placating gesture. ‘He's great. He's fine. He's the best.’

Shiro gaped at her for a moment, like he had just realised something before slamming his mouth resolutely shut. ‘We still have a job to finish,’ he said, effectively declaring the conversation over for now. ‘The refugees are still our responsibility.’

He turned and left the room. The Altean watched him go with a sad look on her face. Other Allura sighed and pulled her into a hug, whispering something in the girl’s ear before letting her go again.

‘Well, while we're here we might as well help you guys out,’ Older Lance offered.

‘We got it, thanks,’ Keith said and followed Shiro out the door.

‘I’m sure there's lots for you to help with!’ Coran spoke over him, a tone of forced cheer to his voice.

Older Lance smiled. ‘Great. We'll meet you on the flight deck once you're done here. Perhaps until then, I could have a chat to my counterpart over there.’

It took Lance a beat too long to realise he was talking about him. ‘Oh, yeah, sure,’ he said, sliding off the medical table to follow Older Lance out the door.

‘McClain,’ Older him said once they were alone in the corridor, heading, by some sort of eerie unspoken agreement, towards Lance’s room.

‘What?’

‘You're thinking we need a way to differentiate the different versions of ourselves, right?’ older him guessed with a smirk. ‘So to make things easier I can be McClain and Hunk can be Garrett. I don't know about the Princess though. She's just Princess Allura of Altea, there is no real variation you can make of that.’ He grinned as a sudden thought struck him. ‘We could call her Al. She’d hate that.’

Lance smirked at the idea. ‘We could try it and see if she kills us?’ he suggested, but the lighthearted tone felt forced.

McClain laughed. ‘Good thinking, kid.’

Lance shook his head. ‘I can't believe we end up the space dad,’ he muttered.

McClain clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Oh no, Shiro is and always will be space dad. He's the only one with an actual kid for one.’

Lance didn't know why it surprised him or what surprised him more; the fact that Shiro had a kid in the future or the fact that Lance didn't.

‘Why don't we have kids?’ Lance found himself asking.

McClain sighed. ‘Listen, kid. I spent my whole life looking for love and then missed it when it was right in front of me because I was looking in all the wrong places. I have four nieces and five nephews whom I adore and my Voltron family to look after, which is already a full time job. There isn't a lot more I could ask for than that. Besides, defending the universe is... it takes up a lot of time.’

Lance nodded, but it didn't make him feel any better. ‘How old are you?’ he asked, since that seemed to be the obvious next question.

‘Thirty-six,’ McClain replied. ‘Eighteen years older than you if my math is right.’

‘Eighteen...’ Lance echoed. He remembered what McClain had said about Keith earlier and he looked up from the floor so quickly that he pulled a muscle in his neck. ‘But you said that Keith died seventeen years ago for you!’ he hissed in pain. ‘That means he's going to die within the year!’

McClain stopped walking and went completely still. Slowly, he said, ‘Nobody knows the future, kid. Just because it happened to my Keith doesn't mean it will happen to yours.’

_ My Keith  _ .

The way McClain said that felt heavy and made Lance’s stomach clench painfully. Keith -  _ his Keith  _ could die soon. The thought filled him with an abstract sense of panic. He remembered the way Keith had smiled at him, genuine and unguarded for once, the last time Lance had visited Keith's room. Keith had listened to Lance voice one of his biggest insecurities and he hadn't scoffed at him, or worse, said he was right. He had just listened and then he had smiled at him and told him that these things work themselves out. Lance had almost believed him.

‘We could stop it,’ Lance said quietly. ‘You must know how he died. If you tell me, I can stop it from happening. I can save him.’

McClain sighed. They had reached Lance’s room and Lance had already keyed the code for the door so they could go inside. McClain immediately threw himself on the bed, but he would no longer look Lance in the eyes.

‘We can’t stop it,’ he said quietly. ‘Even ignoring all the possible consequences of saving him for the future, we wouldn’t have been able to stop it anyway.’

‘I don’t believe you! Why not?’

McClain looked up and there was something in his eyes that made Lance’s mouth go dry. It was a worn, tired look pinched at the edges like old scar tissue. ‘Keith leaves,’ he said, voice quiet but hard. ‘He resigned his position as Black Paladin of Voltron and he never came back. We didn’t even find out he was killed until much later.’

Lance’s knees threatened to give way. He hastily sat down next to his older self, staring blankly at the floor. ‘I don’t believe he would do that.’

‘Looking back,’ McClain murmured. ‘I don’t think he felt he had a choice.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo season 5 happened. I have many feelings about this, but I wont rant about them here. I'm continuing this anyway and will try to weave in elements of season 5 when I can so it's a little more canon compliant, but I don't expect to be able to work in everything. Stay tuned to find out I guess.
> 
> The story is looking at this stage to be about 7 or 8 chapters long and I have pre-written 6+ chapters worth so hopefully that means regular(ish) weekly updates but I also have lots of assignments coming up so I'm not going to promise anything.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy

Since it was getting late, and the future team Voltron had been on the run for weeks, plans ended up being made over dinner. Hunk, as usual, was one of the first to arrive, followed very closely by his future self, wearing a set of clothes borrowed from Hunk’s own wardrobe. They didn’t fit too badly, but he had obviously changed shape over the years so the fabric stretched and hung oddly in places. Also, his older self apparently had grown his hair out, so instead of having his usual headband keeping his bangs in place, it had been re-purposed into holding it in a short ponytail. None of this was as questionable as the goatee though.

Hunk frowned at himself as he started planning what to feed twelve hungry people. ‘I don’t know, man, are you really sure about the beard?’

Older Hunk stroked his goatee defensively. ‘What’s wrong with it? Ma- uhhhhhh, my... partner likes it, so it can’t be that bad.’

Hunk perked up at that. ‘Oh, yeah? Do I know her yet? What’s her name?’

‘I don’t know if I should tell you,’ Older Hunk said, but he had a sheepish grin on his face.

‘Why?’ Hunk asked. ‘I’m going to find out eventually anyway.’

‘It’s just, uh, you know, he’s actually, well, a guy, and I know right now you haven’t really thought about it much so I didn’t want to make you feel weird or anything when you do meet him.’

Hunk took a moment to process. He ended up with a man? Surprisingly it wasn’t actually much of a shock and  _ huh, where had that come from _ ? The thing was, his older self was right. Hunk hadn’t thought about it much at all. He could count the number of crushes he had had in his life on two fingers and both of those had been girls. If he thought about it though... he could imagine it, settling  down with a man. Someone smart and kind with a sense of humour and good taste in food.

‘Hey, buddy, you okay in there?’ His older self’s voice filtered through his thoughts and he blinked out of his musings. 

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,’ Hunk smiled softly. ‘I was just, uh, like you said, I was just thinking about it. That’s cool, man. I’m cool.’

Older Hunk grinned. ‘That's  good. Hey, why don’t I teach you some of the things I learned while I was travelling? Intergalactic cuisine is so good. I can’t wait for you to try this one recipe I picked up on Gvni Four. It will blow your  _ mind _ !’

‘Heya, Hunks! Whatcha cooking?’ Lance asked, walking into the kitchen with his older self at his side.

‘I was just about to show young me how to make-’ Older Hunk was interrupted by a squeal.

‘ _ WHAT IS THAT?’ _ Pidge’s voice echoed from out in the hall. ‘HUNK, GET OVER HERE AND LOOK AT THIS!’

Hunk just about stumbled in his haste to get to Pidge. She stood in the hallway, with the most enraptured expression on her face. Next to her stood the Altean, who had introduced herself as Akira and was currently wearing what looked like one of Allura’s dresses, except Hunk didn’t think he had ever seen that particular one before. In her arms was a green mechanical cat.

He instantly fell in love. ‘Awwwwwww it's so cute!’

‘This is Data,’ Akira announced, beaming happily. ‘Pidge built her years ago. She’s been especially helpful on missions since...’ the smile became a little sad. ‘Since Pidge passed away.’

The way she said it made Hunk’s heart hurt. The way this girl talked about his best friend in the past tense almost made him want to cry. 

‘Oh...’ Pidge’s smile faded a little, but it soon brightened. ‘You mean  _ I  _ built this?’

‘Oh, I mean, I helped a little,’ Older Hunk said from the doorway. ‘She was supposed to go to me when Pidge... But Matt couldn’t stand to have her living with us so Akira kinda adopted her.’

‘You know Matt?’ Pidge demanded. ‘Do you know where I can find him? What about my dad?’

Hunk caught his older self glancing sheepishly at him and the beginnings of an idea began to form in his mind.

‘Pidge!’ Shiro called from further down the hallway. ‘Can we get through?’

‘I forgot how grumpy this Shiro is,’ Older Hunk muttered and beckoned Hunk back into the kitchen. ‘Come on. Let’s feed these people. I’m starving.’

* * *

 

Pidge sat in her lab after dinner, setting variables for simulations, trying to find out where the other team Voltron had come from and how.

‘We thought you might like some help,’ that distinctive voice said and Pidge fought not to look up.

‘I don’t need help from you,’ she insisted.

Lotor smirked in a flash of white fangs and approached anyway. He was wearing Altean clothes, the sort that Coran always wore. Data sat perched on his shoulder like a pirate’s parrot. It reminded her eerily of one of his generals from her time. ‘You know, back in my time, this is my lab.’

Pidge scowled. ‘Yeah, well, my time, my lab. You touch anything and I’ll taze you before you can blink.’

‘You could try, little Pigeon but I have had more than fifteen years to learn your fighting style and you are still just a child.’

‘You don’t know me,’ Pidge returned her gaze to her laptop screen, though she couldn’t seem to get the tension out of her shoulders. Lotor hadn’t done anything to threaten her yet, but she didn't trust him not to try.

Lotor leaned over her shoulder. ‘If you try finding a pattern to the rifts we already know about, you might be able to find the one we came through.’

‘Get out of my space!’ Pidge snapped and slammed her laptop closed. ‘I don’t want your help! I don’t want to even look at you! So just go away!’

A brief flicker of hurt tightened Lotor’s eyes, but it was gone before Pidge could decide she was imagining it. ‘Can we show you something?’ he asked quietly.

Pidge opened her mouth to say something, but instead what came out was, ‘We?’

Lotor stretched his elbow out towards the lab desk.  Data slinked down his arm like the mechanical marvel she was, and her front paw changed, splitting down a seam in the middle to reveal a USB input. She plugged into the laptop like she’d done it a million times before. Curious, Pidge opened her laptop up again.

‘Folder three,’ Lotor instructed and stood back as something appeared on the screen.

Pidge’s own face stared back at her. It was older, squarer and her hair was shorter, but it was definitely her. At her side was her brother, Matt, and Hunk on her other side, each with an arm slung around her shoulders. All three of them were beaming up at the camera.

‘Matt,’ Pidge whispered, feeling her throat close over. The next picture was the same except Hunk and Matt were looking at each other and she had her eyes staring at the ceiling as if in prayer, though the grin was still definitely there. The next picture, Hunk and Matt were a blur and Pidge almost choked in shock. It looked like Matt had tackled Hunk just as whoever was taking the photo had said “cheese”. Pidge was laughing and looked like she was about to hit them on the shoulder, but still, she looked happy.

The next picture, Hunk and Matt were totally out of frame, but half of Lance’s face was in view, as if he was taking the picture and had to stretch to actually get in himself. He and her older self were making disgusted faces. Pidge choked on a laugh. ‘How- I don’t understand what’s going on in these pictures.’

Lotor smirked. ‘I think I'm the wrong person to ask.’

She flicked further through. Lance and Hunk in the training room, sweaty and grinning. Lance with his arm around someone that looked suspiciously like they were related. Shiro and Allura with their arms around each other, both grinning. Allura was wearing a diamond ring on her finger. Lance standing on some beach somewhere, toes in the surf, with his face tilted up towards the sky, silhouetted against a brilliant pink sunset.

Further through she found pictures of what was unmistakably Earth, with herself, Shiro, Lance, Hunk, Allura, Coran and Lotor lined up in full armour as they were presented with medals in front of a wall emblazoned with the United Nations logo.

Pidge’s heart clenched. ‘No Keith.’

‘No.’ Lotor replied without inflection. She elected to ignore him. 

There looked like hundreds of Lance’s selfies with people and species Pidge had never seen before. She found a selfie of Matt and his biggest shit-eating grin, pointing to what looked like Lotor slumped in a chair with his eyes closed. After a moment, she recognised the walls as belonging to the very room she sat in. The next picture was blurry, but Pidge could just make out Lotor’s expression, incandescent with rage and sharpie on his face. She laughed out loud, tears streaming down her face.

‘Do you believe me now?’ Lotor asked. He had moved around to the other side of the desk, watching her catch glimpses of their history. 

‘I believe you fell asleep in Matt’s lab,’ Pidge smirked.

‘It was  _ our _ lab,’ Lotor corrected. ‘Yours, mine, Matt’s and Hunk’s.’

His statement was backed up by a picture of her older self, Hunk, Matt and Lotor crowded around a table in the lab, Data herself sitting up looking between them. The next picture made her gasp as things fell into place in her head. It was Shiro and Allura, with a twelve year old Akira sitting between them. ‘Akira is Shiro and Allura’s daughter?’ she guessed.

Lotor laughed. ‘We’ve been waiting for someone to figure that out. Lance and I started a betting pool as soon as we decided to start looking for you.’

Pidge blinked. ‘You and Lance made a bet. Really? Haven’t you been running for your lives for weeks?’

Lotor shrugged. ‘Exactly, we needed something to release the tension. Garrett was freaking out about seeing you again and McClain needed distracting from the fact there was the possibility that Keith was still alive.’

Pidge was silent for a moment. ‘Garrett hasn’t talked to me since you got here.’

Lotor shrugged. ‘He and your brother took your passing the hardest. He’ll come see you eventually. He’s missed you too much not to.’

Pidge frowned, something like ice constricting her chest. As much as she hated Lotor for being Zarkon’s murderous son, and everything her version of him had done to her team, the way he said that made her feel sick. It was casual, but there was something sharp underneath, like the indifferent tone was for her benefit alone. He was being careful, calculating how much to say in order to gain her trust without betraying himself in the process, but he had been hurt by her death too. 

She sighed. ‘I don’t trust you, and I cannot believe that you pilot my lion now but... you are supposed to be the transreality expert, so I guess you can pull up a chair.’

Lotor’s face remained impassive, but he did quirk his lips. Pidge hated how victorious he looked. ‘Data, folder twelve,’ he instructed and the picture album disappeared, replaced by maps of stars and holographic reconstructions of reality gates, quintessence level readings and profiles of other realities.

‘Holy quiznak,’ she muttered. ‘How do you have all this information?’

Lotor grinned. ‘I do happen to be the expert. Some of this isn’t mine though. I stole the foundation of it from the Witch after the fall of Zarkon and we built it up from there.’

Pidge scanned through some of it. ‘But there’s so many of them. How many alternate realities have you been to?’

Lotor leaned back in his chair. ‘A fair few. Some more than once.’

Her apprehension about Lotor momentarily forgotten, but not assuaged, Pidge got to work.

* * *

Akira couldn't sleep that night. It felt strange to be back in a castle that was identical but wasn't  _ hers _ . In clothes that were similar to the ones she was used to but weren't  _ hers _ . With a family that was so familiar, but wasn't  _ hers _ . It left her feeling homesick and restless.

And yeah, it was strange to see Pidge looking and acting Akira’s own age. It hurt in a way she hadn't expected. It was like the universes were conspiring to give her a glimpse of a life she had never been privy to the first time around, a fresh reminder of how Pidge had been such a presence in her life from day one and that when Akira and her family finally returned to their own universe, they would be leaving someone important behind.

Two someones really, but Keith was different for Akira. He had been gone for a while when she was born. Truthfully, she didn't know a lot about him. If you got Lance drunk enough or tired enough or sad enough he would talk about the fierce warrior Keith had been, his stubborn nature, his stupid hair, his impulsive attitude. As a kid, Akira had imagined him looking like her dad, even if they were not blood related, tall, broad and strong. _ He wielded his blade like it was an extension of his arm, _ Lance said sometimes,  _ and wore his armour like a second skin.  _ While Akira didn't doubt Lance and his assessment, she didn't think he was telling the whole truth either. Keith was smaller than she had expected and maybe it was Akira’s imagination, but he looked like he was in pain.

Akira knew how the story ended, how Keith would leave to join a group of Galra warriors rebelling against the empire, and maybe she was just projecting all the stories she had heard about him from Lance and Dad, but there was something she hadn't expected in the way he held himself, something brittle.

Dad... Lying alone in the dark, Akira thought of her father. His smile, his scars, the way he would hold her after a nightmare when she was little or how he would rush to her and mom after a mission to make sure they were both okay. She remembered how sometimes she would be unable to sleep, too keyed up on leftover adrenaline from a mission or thinking too much or afraid of the monsters lurking in the corners and she would get up and head out to the observation deck and there he would be, mismatched hands clasped behind his back, head tilted back to stare up at the stars, muttering to himself. Silently, she would go to stand beside him and take his hand, tucking herself into his side and his gaze would clear and sharpen for one beautiful moment. He would pull her close and talk quietly - deliberately this time - and tell her stories of the wonders of the universe, of faraway oceans and nebulae and binary star systems. Of people she had never met and places she had never seen, jumping from one topic to the next with his usual lightning speed. Sometimes, she would just tune him out once she lost track of his monologue and enjoy the soft rumbling cadence of his voice and the feeling of safety that always seemed to surround him, and she would look out at the stars and just breathe.

By the Ancients, she missed him.

She found herself padding down towards the observation deck almost without making a conscious decision. Part of her hoped that he would be there, waiting for her like he always was, but she knew that was highly unlikely. She just wanted to hold onto something in this castle that had never before felt her footsteps, that was only hers.

She never made it to the observation deck. Instead, she found herself at the doors that lead onto the bridge, having headed in totally the wrong direction. Oh well. The bridge would be unoccupied at this late hour anyway and it still had a great view.

It wasn't empty when she entered, though. Shiro stood at one of the consoles, still apparently working through star charts and maps of the Galra empire, but he worked silently, eyes scanning the screens almost too quickly, sitting almost too still.

She cleared her throat awkwardly and he jumped, hand lighting up purple in a ready defence and she had forgotten until that moment that this was a Galra arm on a Galra soldier. Her father had an Altean arm. An Altean arm for an Altean prince.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd be here.’

Shiro narrowed his eyes at her and she curled in on herself instinctively. It wasn't very often that she received that look, but when she did, it never boded well for her.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, and there was a hint of accusation in his voice that made her stomach churn.

‘I couldn't sleep,’ she explained. ‘I was heading for the observation deck but I took a wrong turn.’

Shiro relaxed and nodded at her. ‘The observation deck is that way,’ he said, but he pointed in the wrong direction. ‘But you should go to sleep.’

Akira bit her lip. ‘I would rather talk to you,’ she ventured, taking another step into the room. She took her usual seat, the blue paladin’s chair, and tucked her feet up, resting her chin on her knees, watching Shiro bend over his work.

‘I'm busy,’ he said, voice flat.

‘Please?’ she asked and after a moment, his shoulders slumped a little. 

‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

Akira swallowed.  _ So much, you have no idea _ . ‘I wanted to apologise for leaping on you earlier. I wasn't thinking and I know I must have taken you by surprise.’

‘It's fine.’

‘I just...’ Akira sighed. He wasn't her father, but he had her father’s memories, his mind, even if he didn't have his soul, and that was the one part of him Akira had never seen before, not really. ‘You look like my dad. I haven't seen him in weeks and I worry about him. I... I know you're not him, but... sometimes he's not him either. I just wanted a glimpse of what he was like... before...’

Shiro watched her with clear eyes. ‘Tell me your name,’ he said.

‘Akira Shirogane.’ It felt like a confession in a church, this secret that now hung in the air between them.

Shiro nodded like he had already known, like he had just wanted her to confirm this one momentous thing for him. Then he smiled.

‘What do you want to know?’

Akira smiled back at him and she almost wanted to cry because he was  _ here _ , in this moment, in this reality and he was so young and bright and alive that for the first time she understood why her mom sometimes looked at her dad with sadness in her eyes or the way Lance tiptoed around him sometimes. His gaze was so still it was almost unnerving. Her father had never looked at her like that. He loved her, she knew it in her bones and he never hesitated to let her know just how much, but his mind was... fractured. He had been trapped in the astral plane for nearly a year when they finally found him. He had seen into realities no one could even comprehend, through time and space and it had broken him somewhere along the way. He saw too many things at once, Slav had told her when she had asked, and it had left him with a gaze that never stood still and a mind that wandered to far and too fast for anyone to truly follow.

_ What did she want to know? _

‘Anything.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its Friday so have another chapter.

Keith had always hated arguing with Shiro, but recently it felt like that's all they ever did. Mission strategies, team priorities, who should pilot the Black Lion... everything ended in an argument these days and Keith was sick of it.

The latest issue between them? The Blade of Marmora.

Kolivan had contacted them overnight with a request for backup. They didn’t need the lions, they needed someone who didn’t look like the enemy to make introductions to a particularly skittish rebel cell. They had intelligence that the Blades wanted and they couldn't get anywhere near it without someone to let them in. Shiro had volunteered his services, but Kolivan insisted. He wanted Keith.

Keith was desperate to go on that mission.

It felt wrong, it felt like betrayal, but even after the future Voltron had only hung around for less than a day, Keith felt ready to start climbing the walls. It wasn't the fact that they had revealed his fate- dead before the year was out- but the way even his own team had looked at him since that moment. They looked at him like he was already gone, like he was a ghost haunting the castle. Like he was already dead and he just didn't know it yet.

No one had looked him in the eye since older Lance - McClain, whoeverthefuck - had announced his death sentence with the solemn, tired voice of someone carrying old wounds, whose grief was a phantom pain, long gone but never forgotten.

Spending some time away from the castle, from the ghosts of battles past, present and future, somewhere he didn't feel like he was already past tense, felt like such a goddamn relief that Keith failed to immediately register that Shiro was going to say no.

And just like that, they were arguing once again.

‘Keith, you can't go,’ Shiro insisted, arms crossed over his chest. He was using his extra height to his full advantage, glaring down at Keith with his best don't-argue-with-me face. ‘We need you here.’

‘Why?’ Keith glared right back, rebelling against this whole idea. They were  _ Keith and Shiro _ , they were supposed to have each other’s backs, dammit, not be at each other’s throats. 

Something inside Keith had been bending under the strain ever since Shiro had disappeared after the fight with Zarkon. It had been bending under the weight of Shiro’s absence, and even more so once he was chosen by Black to lead Voltron in his place and it hadn't let up even once Shiro had returned. As Shiro stood there, so goddamn convinced that he was right, Keith wondered savagely if he was even looking at his best friend, his  _ brother _ , at all.

‘What if we need Voltron?’ Shiro argued, his voice infuriatingly calm. ‘You're the Black Paladin, Keith, you can't just leave.’

Keith snapped. ‘ _ What _ , like you did?’ It came out louder than Keith had intended, the words felt sharp on his tongue, slicing at him even as he flung them at Shiro. It wasn't fair, and Keith knew it, but he didn't take them back. Shiro’s expression flickered, and Keith caught a glimpse of the hurt that he had caused, the wounds that he had opened up in both of them because Shiro might have been back for a while now, but he didn't  _ feel _ back. Shiro had gone to Kerberos and Keith had been told he was never coming back and it had broken something in him. Then Shiro had returned to Earth and he was different, harder, sharper, older and wiser but still undeniably  _ Shiro _ that Keith had fallen back into the rhythm of  _ Keith and Shiro _ with cautious optimism. Then, Shiro had been lost in the fight with Zarkon, his best friend taken away by the Galra for a second time and when Shiro had once again returned, they had both been different, the space between them jagged in a way it hadn't been the first time. They were both harder and sharper and the pieces of the puzzle that made up  _ Keith and Shiro _ just didn't seem to fit together anymore. The broken pieces cut at Keith until he bled, until he just wanted to get  _ away _ from this place and this person he barely knew anymore, so the pain would stop, even for a short while.

And for once, Keith had an argument Shiro couldn’t contradict.

‘If you need Voltron, throw McClain in the Black Lion and you’ll have everyone you need. I’m going on that mission.’ 

He turned away from Shiro, heading towards the door. He hated being the Black Paladin. Every night he lay awake, waiting for the moment where Black would decide she had chosen wrong, that she would lock Keith out and take Shiro back and Keith would be the one left on the bridge to watch his team go on fighting without him. Still, being the leader had its perks. Like being able to make his own decisions. He wasn’t leaving the team or the universe in danger. He would be back in a couple of days. He needed the breathing room to get over everything that older version of Lance had said, the way he had  _ looked _ at him with a sort of breathless wonder, eyes as sharp and brittle as glass, like Keith’s very presence caused him pain. Keith had always understood that he annoyed Lance for reasons he couldn’t fathom but recently, Lance’s constant need to pick a fight with him had turned into something else. Something softer, more friendly. Keith had hoped that they were... friends now. But the way McClain had been looking at him... Keith had the distinct impression that they wouldn’t stay that way. Keith was going to do something to really hurt Lance somewhere along the line, probably sooner rather than later given his impending death, and he couldn’t stand the idea.

‘You’re right,’ Shiro sighed and Keith stopped with his hand hovering over the door controls. ‘I’m sorry. You’re the Black Paladin now and I shouldn’t have overruled you. I’ll tell Kolivan you’ll be there.’

Something tense in Keith’s shoulders relaxed at Shiro’s words. His best friend was still in there somewhere, Keith could hear it in his voice. Somehow, that made it easier to go, because the Shiro Keith had known for so long would trust him to get the job done and come back without jeopardising the team. 

‘Thank you,’ Keith said quietly. He glanced over his shoulder to see Shiro smiling a little hesitantly back at him. For the first time it occurred to Keith that maybe he wasn’t the only one who hated it when they fought. He quirked his lips in a brief flash of a smile back at him. ‘I’ll see you in a few days.’

And with that, he left.

* * *

Breakfast was a little surreal for Allura that morning. Usually, she didn't join the Paladins for breakfast, but she made an exception today. The only people there when Allura walked in were Coran, McClain and her older self, already sitting in her usual spot.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Older Allura smiled a little sheepishly. ‘I forgot, this is probably your seat. I can move.’ She made to rise, but Allura smiled and waved her back down.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she assured her. ‘It’s just a seat.’ She took the empty chair next to her, and helped herself to a piece of fruit from the bowl on the table. As she pried it apart daintily with her fingers, she studied her older self. The princess’s hair was loose around her shoulders, only coming down to her mid chest. Allura hadn’t worn her hair that short since she was a small child. Curious, she turned a little to face her counterpart. ‘When did you cut your hair?’

Her older self laughed and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, out of her face. ‘About fifteen years ago,’ she said wryly. ‘It’s far easier to manage with children around.’

Allura made an effort not to choke on her fruit. ‘Children?’

‘Kira!’ McClain, who had previously been considering his mug of tea with a curious expression looked up as Akira walked in. ‘There’s my favourite blue paladin!’ he reached out and snagged her around the arm. She giggled and squeezed him around the shoulders before extricating herself and moving into the kitchen.

She waved at the Other Allura. ‘Hey, Mo- uh...’ She registered that the two Alluras were sitting side by side. ‘Hi, Allura.’ Her markings glowed slightly pink for a moment as she looked between them.

‘Hello, Akira,’ Allura smiled.

‘There’s more food in the kitchen, love,’ her future counterpart said, squeezing her hand as Akira passed her on her way out.

‘I see,’ Allura murmured once she was gone, something like giddiness or shock swirling in her stomach. ‘Is she... are there other Alteans besides Coran and I out there?’ she didn’t want to get her hopes up. The thought that there might be more of her people that had survived... it was a far-flung dream, and yet the closest hope to her heart. To think she might not be one of the last...

‘Not in this time,’ the Red Paladin answered softly. ‘But Akira is family. She is Altea’s hope for a brighter future.’

‘She’s beautiful,’ Allura smiled.

Her counterpart matched her expression, pride filling her familiar blue eyes. ‘That she is.’

Hunk wandered into the kitchen and sat heavily down opposite them. ‘Hey Alluras,’ he yawned.

‘Late night, buddy?’ McClain asked from the head of the table. 

Hunk nodded. ‘Me, Pidge and Lotor were up most of the night sifting through information on transreality rifts, trying to figure out how to make sure we know where and when we’re going if we travel through one. We’ve got a prototype in the works though so we should have something to go on soon.’

McClain stood up, apparently done with breakfast. He pressed a hand to Hunk’s shoulder as he passed on the way out of the room, pride written over his face. ‘You’re doing good, Hunk. Make sure you and the others get some rest though. You’re no used to us dropping dead of exhaustion.’

Hunk sighed. ‘Thanks, man. Try telling Pidge that though. She’s obsessed.’

Allura caught a brief tightness around Lance’s eyes but said nothing. ‘Will do.’ He left, and a strange sort of silence filled the room.

Allura sighed. ‘McClain is right,’ she said. ‘Your team has been through a lot so you should take the time to rest while you can. Hunk and Pidge too.’

The Red Paladin frowned. ‘What about Voltron?’ she asked. ‘We should make sure we can still form Voltron with Keith gone.’

Allura pursed her lips. ‘I’ll talk to McClain about doing an experiment later,’ she agreed. ‘But I don’t really think we should try anything just now.’

Her counterpart nodded. ‘This is your time,’ she said. ‘It’s up to you.’

* * *

Keith landed on the rocky planet Keikrops accompanied by two of the smaller, slighter, not-all-Galra members of the Blade of Marmora. He was wearing Marmoran armour, which felt weird, but remained unmasked, in contrast to his bodyguards. They were met by a fully armed delegation of aliens. They were a large, imposing species, like centaurs in appearance - except the horse half was more like a snake than anything else and the human half was some kind of scaly insect on steroids.

The information they needed was on quintessence. The creatures - the araknei - claimed to have discovered a team of heavily guarded galra scientists working on a way of harvesting it onplanet and, fearful for their lives and their freedom, had reached out to the budding Voltron coalition. Kolivan received the message instead, and sent a reconnaissance team to investigate. The team had found the site newly abandoned, with enough evidence left behind to corroborate the araknei’s story. Then, they had gone silent.

‘We asked for Voltron and they sent us Galra,’ the head araknei hissed at Keith without pausing to extend any form of greeting, voice like sandpaper on stone.

‘I am Keith, the Black Paladin of Voltron,’ Keith introduced himself, pushing back his hood. ‘What have you done with the scouts we sent?’

‘I am Anehta,’ the leader said. ‘You do not look like a Paladin of Voltron.’

Slowly, Keith lifted the bayard in his hand for Anehta to see. ‘We thought discretion would be best for this mission, but I’ve brought my bayard as proof of identity.’ Deliberately pointing it away from the delegation, he activated it, watching it blossom into his usual sword.

The delegation raised their weapons in reaction to the gesture, but didn’t fire, relaxing fractionally after a moment of tension. Anehta blinked, eyelids clicking with the movement. ‘Follow me. I will take you to your Galra friends.’

Instead of taking them directly to the prison where the Blade of Marmora scouts were being held, Anheta lead Keith and his companions into the nearest building. ‘You must have travelled quite far, yes?’ Anheta asked. Their voice rasped against Keith’s ears, the harsh  _ kssssh-tap _ of a chair dragging across the floor. Keith declined to answer. ‘You must be hungry. Let us offer you refreshments.’

Keith clenched his fist in an effort not to say anything accusatory. ‘Thank you, but I would rather make sure the prisoners are alright and see what they found so we can find out what the galra were doing on this planet.’

Anheta hissed. ‘Our guests are well looked after. Please, we have much to discuss before you see them. There have been some... developments.’

Keith sighed. If the araknei wanted to talk, then at least it was an opportunity to find out more about what was going on here. ‘Fine. Lead the way.’

The araknei soldiers flanked them like an honour guard. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and his fingers twitch.

They were lead into a long building with no discernible pattern to the winding stone halls. He had seen it from the air as they descended. Halls and small node-like rooms stretched outward from a large central hub like spindly fingers reaching out across the dusty landscape,

Keith could never be quite sure how the fight broke out, only that it did. One of his hosts pulled a knife and stabbed one of Keith's Marmoran companions in the back. The half-Galra let out a strangled cry and collapsed, twitching before going still. The rest of the araknei warriors surrounded Keith, weapons pointed at his face from all sides.

‘You will call Voltron,’ Anehta hissed at Keith. The remaining member of the Blade struggled in the arms of an araknei soldier, the alien’s many thick limbs rendering escape impossible. One skeletal hand held a wicked knife to the Marmoran’s throat.

‘This was a trap,’ Keith said, though it was unnecessary.

‘You will call Voltron,’ Anehta repeated. Keith felt the point of something sharp dig into his back. He sucked in a breath and focused on leveling the insectoid with as firm a stare as he could muster, he had never managed a good poker face before.

Lance was constantly calling him out on being too emotional, reckless, a hothead. Keith clenched his fists. He was cornered, hopelessly outnumbered and alone in a room full of the enemy, with his only potential ally held hostage, but he would not yield here. He would not betray his team. Shiro had made them his responsibility and as much as Keith felt shackled, trapped by it, he took that position seriously.

What was it the Galra always said?

Victory or death. 

Maybe just this once, he could work with that.

* * *

 

It was very early morning when Pidge’s eyes finally closed, falling asleep at their desk. Lotor let them - they had done so plenty of times before. Hunk had long since retired. With only Data for company, the silence was... unsettling. The castle creaked and rumbled as it sailed through space. Each noise was uncomfortably loud in low light of the lab, the shadows were too dark, too alive. The words and equations on the screen Lotor was staring at were just a mess of blurred lines now. It had been hours since he had moved and he felt that itch in his muscles, that jumpiness that he hadn’t indulged in a while now. Sighing, he rose and stalked down the halls on silent feet.

McClain’s face was scrunched into a scowl when the door to his bedroom opened and Lotor just waited until the man was awake enough to take in who was standing in front of him. He raised an eyebrow in inquiry but Lotor just stared him down, expression hardening into something he was sure McClain would recognise.

McClain sighed. ‘Wait here.’ The door closed.

When McClain returned, he was wearing sparring clothes, bayard in hand.

They walked through the halls in silence. When they reached the training deck, Lotor activated his own bayard, a wicked green blade glowing into existence in his hand. The thrum of energy it elicited from him was enough to have him grinning. McClain’s bayard grew into its own blade, an Altean broadsword, all elegant black and white lines.

Lotor swung and the game began.

_ Swing. Dodge. Parry. _

He hadn’t known McClain very well before he became the Black Paladin. It wasn’t really until after Lotor’s father had been defeated, after Lotor's Empire had crumbled under the carnage left behind by the warring factions Zarkon had left behind and Lotor had somehow found himself sheltered on Earth with the Paladins that the man, barely out of his teens back then and still grieving, had fallen into step with Lotor, building an uneasy friendship on a foundation of snide remarks and cutting banter. 

_ Block. Disengage. Sidestep. _

Earth had settled them, though. Returning to the home planet of that era’s team Voltron had been something of a reset for everyone involved. They fell into a routine. Together, Hunk and the Holts had founded a science research foundation designed to ease the planet into the Intergalactic Age and Lotor had become something of a spokesperson for them after much persuasion, words coming easier to him than his fellow scientists. It had been rather dull, but it had allowed him access to all of their research and their equipment so he could continue his life’s work. They had let him.

_ Stab. Duck. Block. _

Lance had disappeared for the first year back on Earth. He moved into his mother’s spare room and helped her raise his growing extended family for thirteen months. When he had returned, soon after Akira’s birth, he started working with Shiro on the interplanetary relations department the United Nations had established to deal with the sudden influx of alien visitors.

_ Swing. Retreat. Catch. _

Two after Lance  had taken the job, Lotor had gotten a call. ‘Teach me how to sword fight,’ Lance had said.

‘No,’ Lotor had replied and hung up. Not ten minutes later, someone had banged on his door and there Lance was, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, bayard in hand.

‘Teach me.’

Fifteen years later, McClain swung a blade with all the confidence of the seasoned warrior he was. There was power behind his slashes, clean and precise movements from over a decade of hard training. Lotor had taught him economy of movement, and Lance had taken the instruction like a fish to water, that sharp mind thriving under the strategy and watchfulness Lotor preached. It made him a worthy opponent, someone who could keep Lotor’s mind occupied and his body moving, always dodging, always parrying, always looking for a way beneath each other’s defenses. 

_ Shove. Swing. Swing. Dodge. Parry. _

Lotor might have been the one to initiate this particular sparring session, but McClain was the one on the offensive more than usual tonight. Perhaps it was seeing the Keith again after so long. It wasn’t as if he had keep his younger self’s infatuation with the half breed a secret once they had discovered the former paladin’s fate. Perhaps it was the frustration of being trapped in this time with people fighting an enemy they had thought long since defeated, perhaps it was the fact they were trapped in this time with their friends and allies still in the future, still fighting their war without Voltron to lead the charge. Perhaps it was Lance himself, a reminder of who he had been once, who he could have been had fate treated him differently, that made McClain fight so hard.

Whatever it was didn’t matter, it just made him easier to beat.

‘You are fighting sloppily tonight,’ Lotor goaded as their blades locked. McClain grimaced with exertion, sweat already beading on his brow. Lotor laughed and threw him off, stood with his sword at his side and waited for McClain to advance.

‘You woke me up in the middle of the night,’ McClain protested, but they both knew it wasn’t the reason. ‘Excuse me for not fighting to my usual standard.’

Lotor tsked. ‘You are always ready to fight,’ he observed. ‘You’re distracted.’ McClain swung, Lotor blocked, used one leg to trip him up and McClain went crashing to the floor. ‘Unfocused.’ 

‘You’re an asshole,’ McClain growled as Lotor helped him to his feet. ‘And yet...’ He yanked on their joined hands, overbalancing Lotor enough to trip him with his foot and finish the move with the tip of his blade nestled beneath Lotor’s purple chin. He blew a few strands of white hair out of his face as McClain grinned down at him, eyes lit with something like triumph. ‘I’m not the only one who is distracted. Care to share?’

Lotor narrowed his eyes at him and rose gracefully to his feet. ‘I can’t find the solution,’ he admitted, brushing himself off, doing his best to appear unflappable and unafraid. He didn't look at McClain for his reaction. ‘I don’t know how to get us back to our own time.’

‘You will,’ Lance insisted. ‘You just haven’t found the way home  _ yet _ .’

Lotor looked down at his blade for a moment, the green light of it throwing harsh shadows over his hands. He spun it once through his fingers. He looked at McClain. ‘Again.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotor and Lance are friends in the future and I will defend that headcanon until my dying breath. A lot has happened between them at this point since the events of Season 5.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late because Uni has been busy this week.
> 
> Just a warning, this chapter gets a bit graphic, violence-wise. Basically, Keith gets tortured. I tried to keep it light as possible, but it's kinda difficult given the subject matter. Spoilers will be put in the end notes if you'd rather be forewarned.

Keith had promised himself he wouldn’t scream, but when the first lance was driven through the palm of his hand he had yelled himself hoarse. His chest ached from a cracked rib or three, and the slices down his arms smarted and shrieked as his struggling pulled the wounds open more.

‘You will summon Voltron,’ a nameless araknei had hissed. The words were all he had heard for hours and the repetition of it was fuelling in him a sort of desperation. His mind raced and twisted in circles, weighing and discarding options so quickly he could barely keep up with himself. His uninjured hand fought against the restraints that held him down, but all it did was jolt the rest of his body, causing more pain. Keith fought his own panicking body just to avoid blacking out.

Something glinted in the corner of his eye, and Keith barely refrained from a violent flinch.

‘You will summon Voltron,’ the araknei rasped and Keith found himself nodding, tears streaming silently into his hair.

‘I’ll do it! Please, just- just stop- don’t- don’t-’ he screamed as the metal in his hand was pulled out, whimpering as the room around him greyed for a moment. The restraints around his good hand were removed and a communicator presented to him. Trembling uncontrollably, he keyed in a code. ‘K-Kolivan, it’s Keith. Keikrops was a trap.’ The araknei let out an angry rattling hiss and snatched at the communicator in his grip. Keith fought to hold onto it, raising his voice in the hope he would still be heard. ‘The araknei are working for the galra! They want Voltron! Tell Voltron to stay away!’ 

Keith didn’t see one of his captors limbs come swinging for him, he only knew the reverberating thud as their armoured forearm collided with his skull and he succumbed to the dark.

* * *

‘Hey, uhh, Pidge. Can I talk to you?’

Pidge looked up from her computer. It was mid-afternoon, two days after the arrival of the future team Voltron and Garrett stood in front of her, playing absently with his fingers, but looking at her with an openly hopeful expression.

Pidge smiled, a strange mix of relief and dread churning in her chest. ‘Sure thing.’

Garrett looked nervous, which was a rather amusing look on someone who stood at least six foot three and had enough muscle on his frame to look truly imposing if he wanted to. He laughed awkwardly. ‘It’s, uhhh, it’s been a while since you were so small,’ he said. Pidge raised an eyebrow at him, communicating her mild displeasure with the single move. ‘Right, sorry. I didn’t mean it like...’ Garrett slumped a little and at Pidge’s wordless invitation, collapsed heavily in the nearest chair. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just... It’s been a while since I talked to you.’

That dreaded feeling in Pidge’s chest solidified. ‘I know,’ she replied, her voice coming off harder than she meant it to, trying to play it off like he hadn’t just referenced her death. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘I just...’ Garrett sighed and Pidge hated the idea that this was her best friend from the future, rendered a babbling mess in her presence when she often felt like Hunk was the only one who really understood her completely. ‘How are you? Are you good? I-’

‘Hunk, stop,’ Pidge snapped, unable to watch him flounder anymore. ‘I’m great. I mean, I’ll be better when I find my family and we defeat the Galra Empire, but I’m fine. Do you want to help me with this?’ She showed him her laptop screen, where she was designing an algorithm that could hopefully find undocumented transreality anomalies using the information she had gotten from Data.

‘Thats...’ Garrett grinned. ‘That’s genius, Pidge!’ He scooted closer in his chair so he could see it better. ‘Matt and Lotor have been trying to figure this out for months, but they’re really the wrong kind of scientists. You could just have won the war for us back in our time if we can get this to work!’

‘I was actually trying to use it to figure out which anomalies would lead to which universes. You’ve got quite a few on record. It’s made things a little more difficult to figure out, but I think I’m getting there. Why does this matter so much to the war against the Galra?’

Garrett laughed. ‘Oh, Pidge, we’re not fighting the Galra, anymore. We took care of that years ago. We’re fighting the Great Altean Commonwealth now.’

Pidge blinked. ‘Funny, Lotor didn’t mention that,’ she said slowly.

Garrett shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter to you at the moment, does it?’

Pidge frowned. ‘That depends... how did this Great Altean Commonwealth come about? There aren’t exactly many Alteans hanging around these days.’

‘They’re not our reality’s Alteans,’ Garrett sighed. ‘It's an empire that spans realities.’

Pidge sucked in a breath. ‘The Alteans we met in that reality we traveled to... they wanted to spread their twisted version of peace among the rest of creation.’

Garrett’s expression darkened. ‘And they have been trying ever since.’

Pidge leaped forward. ‘That means that they managed to find some way of travelling between realities even though we managed to steal the transreality comet. If they find a way into this universe...’

‘Then the galra will be the least of your worries,’ Garrett finished for her. ‘Trust me, I know. But it took them years and years to find enough of that stuff to even get one ship out.’

‘But what if they get to this universe through yours?’ Pidge brought up the data Lotor had collected, searching hurriedly through it for any information on the nature of the anomalies themselves. ‘Did you guys ever find out how to close one of these properly?’

Garrett shook his head. ‘We’re working on it. Matt had a theory he was working on when we traveled to this timeline. If he hasn’t been too distracted looking for us, we might just have something to work with, but at the moment it’s a long shot. King Alfor never figured out how do it without destroying an entire planet.’ He stared at his hands again. ‘It would have been easier if we still had you on the team. Matt’s a genius but his specialty is biology. I work better with hardware anyway, you were the programmer. We’re getting by with Data, who has most of your coding installed, but they're not anywhere near the real thing.’

Pidge’s fingers stilled on the keyboard. There was real emotion in Garrett’s voice and she didn’t know how to feel about it. ‘When we think we’ve got the algorithm sorted, we can work on finding a way to close these rifts,’ she decided.

Garrett grinned. ‘Just like the good old days,’ he said. ‘Well, uh, for me and Lotor anyway.’

Pidge smiled. ‘We’ll figure it out,’ she promised.

The lab doors opened and Lotor sauntered through, raising a pleased eyebrow at Garrett’s presence. ‘Shiro wants us on the bridge,’ he said, voice flat.

Pidge rolled her eyes. ‘Does Shiro ever stop bossing us around?’ she asked as she packed up her things.

Garrett laughed. ‘Nope. But we love him anyway.’

* * *

McClain grinned down at his younger version as he put on his helmet. ‘What’s the matter, kid? You worried about a little training exercise?’

Lance scoffed and puffed out his chest in a way that would have made McClain laugh had it not been a reminder of just how much of the posturing he had done at that age was compensating for crippling self-doubt. Instead he just settled his younger self with a deadpan expression. Lance returned the look with a shit-eating grin. ‘Are you?’

McClain did laugh at that. ‘You think the Galra Empire is the worst enemy I’ve had to deal with?’ He smirked. ‘This’ll be fun.’

Kira danced out from behind him, her bayard coming to life and she swung, grin plastered on her face. The quarterstaff landed at Lance’s feet and the game began in earnest. McClain fired at Lance as he ran for higher ground and then Hunk was shouting as he sprayed lazerfire at them, sending McClain and Akira diving for cover. 

The training room had been augmented to provide half-walls, pillars and other things to make line-of-sight a problem. It was going to be good for Lance, he mused as he sheltered behind a partial wall. Sharpshooter he may be, but this sort of terrain was not something that had been very commonplace at this point in the war against the Galra. Later, when the fighting went from soldiers in spaceships to armies battling it out planetside, this sort of set up would become much more relevant. Perhaps that was why his version of Allura had chosen it.

McClain waited until the sound of shooting stopped and leaped out from behind his hiding place, firing off several rounds at the spot he guessed Hunk had been. He heard Hunk cry out as he rolled to his feet, eyes up and scanning for Lance.

Allura caught him around the ankles with her whip and he crashed to the ground. The older version at McClain’s back took the opportunity presented by the brief pause in cannon fire to flick her whip out, entangling the hard light into Hunk’s blaster cannon and, trusting him to stand his ground, used it to help launch herself around a pillar, darting around him as he shot blindly at her until she was too close for his bayard to be of any further use. 

Akira followed up with a swing at the younger Allura’s head, which she saw coming and ducked, catching the staff with her free hand. They grappled and a shot rang out from somewhere up near McClain’s six. He spun, trusting Akira to take care of Allura and fired in the direction the shot had come from, darting for cover as answering fire nearly hit him in the shoulder. Grinning, he searched the room for a way up as Lance continued to lay down fire from above. He found it, just as Lance turned his sights on him and he rushed for it darting left and right to avoid being hit. Lance was waiting for him when he reached his sniper nest. McClain took the glancing blow, trusting his armour to absorb the energy, like it was supposed to do. He fired back, unleashing a barrage into Lance’s chest. The kid went down and McClain set his bayard aside to help him up and make sure he didn’t fall from his perch.

‘I win,’ McClain announced. He called his bayard back into action, this time replacing his automatic figuration with a sniper rifle, identical to Lance’s but black instead of red. He was just lining up Allura in his sights when the structure beneath him vanished into thin air. 

Acting on instinct, he grabbed at Lance, dropping his bayard without hesitation. Lance screamed as the floor rushed up to meet them and McClain twisted in the air so Lance was protected from the fall. His back hit the ground with enough force to wind him, Lance landing in a heap on top of him. McClain coughed and tried to breathe through the pain, blinking away the stars in his eyes. His head hurt, but he’d endured much worse. He knew what a concussion felt like intimately by now, and he wasn’t worried, just stunned. Lance scrambled off him, accidentally digging his elbow in McClain’s gut on the way up.

‘Lance! Are you okay?’ Someone, probably Kira, asked.

‘I’m fine,’ McClain and Lance replied at the same time. 

Lance laughed and offered him a hand. ‘Hey, thanks for the save back there, man.’

‘No problem,’ McClain wheezed and let Lance haul him up. ‘What the hell happened?’

‘Sorry,’ Lotor said from the open door, ( _ oh, that was probably why the simulation shut itself down _ ) though he didn’t sound particularly apologetic. Knowing him, the interruption was probably deliberate. ‘That might have been us.’ Pidge, young,  _ tiny _ Pidge, ducked out from behind him, waving a pad in front of her.

‘Shiro wants us on the bridge,’ Garrett said, appearing at the door frame. 

McClain frowned. ‘Did he say why?’

Lotor shrugged, and after years fighting side by side, Lance could tell when the bastard knew more than he was saying. ‘It might have something to do with Keith,’ he said.

McClain raced Lance out of the door and down the hall without another word.

 

McClain could have punched Lotor in the face. He probably would have if he had the time. It was probably good that his team was being grounded for this mission. Lance was not Shiro. He was not so easy to cool down when he got angry.

Keith was in trouble and the asshole had taken his sweet time gathering everyone to the bridge. Sure, he hadn’t known why the call from the Blade of Marmora was important enough to warrant everyone’s attendance (McClain and his team staying carefully out of frame so as not to bring up any unwanted questions), neither had Shiro, but as soon as McClain had heard the words  _ “Keith has been compromised” _ come out of Kolivan’s mouth all he could see was red.

The Black Lion - this universe/time/reality/whatever’s version of McClain’s own - was only slightly hesitant to let him in. She poked through his mind for a moment, and despite the urgency of the situation, Lance let her. This might not have been  _ his _ Black Lion, but he knew her better than anyone in his universe. He and his version of Shiro were the only two Black Paladins surviving, and Lance had been the Head of Voltron for far longer than his old friend ever had. Blue was his first, and would always have a special place in his heart, Red was a reminder of how he had gotten to where he was, and a reminder of Keith, and he couldn’t think of her without the bittersweet feelings he associated with those things, but Black was the lion he had been piloting the longest. They knew each other inside out and backwards. Even across universes and timelines, their connection remained.

She let him in.

Lance could feel her surprise and her inquisitiveness conflicting with her need to get on with the mission. Keith was her paladin right now and he was in some sort of danger. Enough that Black seemed to struggle with impatience as the castle traveled through a wormhole.

Coran’s face appeared over the comms. ‘Coming out of the wormhole in ten ticks,’ he said.

‘Got it,’ McClain replied, half on autopilot as he checked the controls and the status of Black’s various systems, looking for anything to distinguish her from the Black he knew and loved. It was highly unlikely, he thought, for there to be any difference, but he wanted no surprises.

‘Everyone ready?’ McClain asked.

‘Ready!’ Allura's voice was the first over the comms.  Her voice was a comfort, the years he had spent with her as his right hand made this whole situation feel a little less weird.

His fingers gripped the controls, the not-quite-leather of his flight suit creaking against the metal. 'Everyone be prepared to fly as soon as we exit the wormhole.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Pidge replied and Hunk echoed them. Something twisted in McClain’s chest at their voice, but he cast it aside. Now was not the time.

‘Let’s do this,’ Lance replied, face serious and awash with red light from the cockpit of his lion. It was going to be strange without Allura acting as his right hand. Even stranger that his right hand man was now himself. 

The castle shuddered slightly and the light on Black’s dashboard that indicated whether they could open the hangar doors or not flashed momentarily green. McClain steered Black towards the exit and they launched out into space.

* * *

The building shook with the force of the battle outside as something clashed with the araknei’s defence systems. Keith shifted in and out of consciousness, just barely aware of the scrambling aliens around him. Distantly he heard one of the insectoid’s rasping voices calling for backup somewhere.

‘We’re under attack! It’s Voltron!’

‘ _Noooooo_...’ Keith groaned and then he was fading again.

The next time he awoke, the room was much quieter. He was alone, he realised, and outside the door he could hear the distant sound of laserfire somewhere down the winding halls. His fingers in his injured hand were numb, but the hand itself radiated pain, slick with drying blood, a scream threatening to break free with every tiny movement he managed under the restraints. Still, he struggled. If there was any time to escape, this would be it. He grit his teeth, the only sound coming out of his ruined throat a stifled breathy whine.

‘Check in there.’ An almost-familiar voice made Keith freeze, listening. It was deep, sharp and full of authority.  _ Shiro? _

The door hissed open, revealing a dark hallway and Keith tried to resume his struggling, heart beating out of his chest.

‘Keith!’ It was a different voice to the one that had spoken earlier. Different, and yet the same somehow, and this one Keith could place instantly. ‘Guys, I found him!’

‘Lance, you idiot! I told you to stay away!’ Keith swallowed down a sob, but his voice came out rough and strained, close to breaking. 

Lance rushed towards him, coming out into the low light so Keith could see him properly. His face was bleached deathly pale by the overhead lights, his eyes were barely visible through his helmet visor, but Keith thought he could detect their movement, quickly running him up and down, checking the status of his injuries as he moved to undo Keith’s restraints. ‘Oh, quiznak, what the hell happened to you?’ Lance breathed, horror clear in his voice as he reached Keith’s ruined hand.

‘They-they... wanted me t-to call you here...’ Keith tried to explain, but he couldn’t keep his voice steady. ‘A- a trap.’

Lance was rendered speechless as he moved to Keith’s other side, helping him up once he was free. The sudden upright position made Keith’s head swim dangerously and he slumped against Lance’s side as between them, they tried to keep him on his feet.

‘Shit, Keith!’ Lance gasped as Keith’s knees buckled. ‘Hey, guys we need help!’

‘Lance!’ that familiar voice was back, a man in black paladin armour bursting through the door, firing over his shoulder down the hall at the sounds of pursuit. ‘Holy- what happened?’

‘Just help me!’ Lance snapped. His voice was strangely far away.

‘Here, let me,’ the paladin said and Keith’s feet was swept out from under him as he was lifted into a pair of strong arms.

‘Shiro?’ he asked one black-clad shoulder.

‘Close,’ the shoulder replied with the barest hint of humour. ‘McClain. Damn, you look like you hit your head. Stay with me, Keith, this is going to be rough. We’re going to get you looked at, but you need to stay awake for me, okay?’

‘Lance?’ Keith murmured.

‘Yeah?’ the answer came from two different places at once and Keith tried to shake his head to clear it, but only succeeded in making it hurt more.

‘Why’re you wearing Shiro’s armour?’

‘I’m from the future, remember?’ Lance-but-not-Lance said and Keith’s mind helpfully supplied the image of a much older version of Lance stepping out of the Black Lion from a few days ago.  _ Hot _ , his mind commented unhelpfully at the memory.  _ Yes _ , agreed the side of his body pressed against Not-Lance’s chest.  _ Very _ .

‘Ohhhhhh,’ he murmured. His head drooped more heavily onto McClain’s shoulder. ‘I forgot.’

‘We’re almost there,’ Lance - Keith’s Lance said from somewhere out front. ‘Hunk, Pidge and our Allura are still holding off the fleet. Your Allura’s helping from the castle. Lotor’s asking if you need the rest of your team.’

‘Tell him to get a healing pod ready for our arrival and tell my Allura to get ready to tag in.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Lance saluted and took the lead, speaking into his helmet comm. They reached a door and Lance opened it, letting in the bright sunlight from outside. Keith winced and buried his face in McClain’s shoulder. Distantly, he was aware of Red looming above them.

McClain gently lowered Keith to his feet and handed him over to the younger Lance. ‘Go get Keith to the castle with the other prisoners,’ he ordered. ‘I’ve got this.’

* * *

The other timeline’s Red Lion and her paladin were ready and waiting to tag out when Lance landed in the hangar. Without a word, older Allura launched her lion into space to join the fight before Lance had even set his lion down. Garrett and Shiro were already waiting too, some sort of hovering gurney table waiting for Keith to be laid out on. 

‘Lotor’s in the med bay getting everything ready,’ Garrett said, all business, but he looked pale as he took in Keith’s condition. Keith moaned and closed his eyes. ‘He’ll be okay. Hey, uh, buddy. Long time no see. How you doing?’

‘Keith?’ Shiro asked, trying to coax a reaction out of him. 

Keith cracked an eye open at him. ‘You shouldn’t have come for me,’ he said, voice too faint for Lance's liking. ‘It was stupid.’

‘I shouldn’t have let you go,’ Shiro admonished, though whether the sentiment was directed at Keith or himself, Lance couldn’t tell. ‘ _ That _ was stupid. This is why I didn’t want you to leave, Keith. Working with the Blade of Marmora is dangerous.’

‘War’s dangerous,’ Keith slurred. ‘Blade’s no different.’

Shiro frowned at him. ‘Keith-’ he began, voice stern, but Lance cut him off before they could pick a fight while Keith was barely conscious and probably in shock.

‘Argue later!’ he snapped. ‘Let’s just focus on getting Keith sorted before you chew him out, okay?’

Shiro made as if to round on Lance, but was interrupted again as they reached the medbay doors. Lotor met them and he and Garrett expertly helped Keith into the healing pod as Lance and Shiro could do nothing but watch. 

Shiro sighed. ‘Sorry. I don’t know what came over me... I’m just...’

Lance stared at his hands, wringing his fingers together. ‘I know. Me too.’

Shiro ran a hand through his hair and sighed, turning back. ‘I'm going to head back to the bridge. See if Coran needs anything. Keep me updated. And Lance?’ He glanced at Lotor and Garrett talking quietly. ‘Keep an eye on them for me. Especially Lotor.’

Lance felt the urge to salute, but managed to hold back. ‘You got it.’ 

Shiro left the room and Lance leaned against the wall by the door, watching Garrett and Lotor talk quietly among themselves. His gaze kept flicking back to Keith's sleeping face, but there was nothing Lance could do to help him now. What he needed was a distraction and Shiro had practically ordered him to spy on Lotor and Garrett anyway, so he might as well kill two birds with one stone.

During a lull in conversation, Lance stretched and walked over to them. ‘So how exactly do you go from hunting Voltron to becoming the Green Paladin?’ he asked, trying his best to look suave and in control despite the fact he was shorter than both of the men in front of him and the adrenaline of battle was starting to wear off, leaving him shaky and exhausted. All he really wanted now was a nice hot bath and a long nap. Instead he was babysitting galra royalty and Hunk with a beard. ‘Explain that one to me.’

Lotor raised an eyebrow. ‘I came to my senses.’ Garrett chewed on his lip the way he did sometimes when trying not to laugh.

‘Liar,’ Lance said.

Lotor sighed. ‘I made a mistake,’ he admitted. ‘Voltron... was a way to rectify it.’

Lance crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Oh yeah? What kind of mistake?’

Lotor glared at him purple-yellow eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Don't ask,’ he said.

‘Well how do you expect us to trust you if you don't tell us the truth?’ Lance challenged. ‘That's basic alliances 101.’

Lotor's face twisted into something that reminded Lance exactly what this man was capable of. A quirk of the lips that somehow conveyed more anger than any amount of violence ever could. ‘Why don't you ask the man who shares your face who to trust? Or perhaps Allura, both of whom are risking their lives to save your precious paladin right now. Why don't you come down to the lab and take a look at all the data we've gathered? The photos of your family we've got on file would surely prove my point. Or perhaps everything we know about the circumstances of Pidge’s death? Will knowing the future help you then, young Lance? Will you trust us then?’ he turned away, facing the healing pods. ‘Or is it only my future you are interested in? Is it because in your eyes I am still the enemy?’

Lance wanted to retort, everything in him that had been waiting to snap since he found Keith tied to that table on Keikrops, every fighting instinct that reared it's head at the sound of Lotor’s voice, every ugly prejudice about the Galra that he tried to squash begged him to  _ fight _ .

But he couldn't help but notice the tension in Lotor’s shoulders, the faint undercurrent of hurt in his voice, and he stopped.

‘I don't know you,’ he said finally. ‘I'm sorry, but I don't. I do trust the Green Lion though. If she says you're okay, then I believe her. I’m sorry.’

Lotor nodded curtly. Lance was left feeling awkwardly out of place as Garrett looked between the two of them, torn. Finally, he settled for placing a hand on Lotor’s shoulder and turning away, focusing on Lance. ‘Let's leave him be,’ he said. ‘We really do have some cool photos we can show you if you want.’

Lance spared one more glance at Keith in the pod and Lotor, still with his back turned to them and nodded. Garrett smiled and it was so _ Hunk _ that Lance couldn't help smiling back.

‘Let's go, buddy,’ Garrett said and lead Lance out of the room. ‘Keith's going to be fine.’

As they walked down the hall, Coran’s voice floated over the intercom.

_ ‘Everyone's home safe. Prepare for wormhole jump.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic violence warning: Keith's hand gets impaled as a method of inflicting pain so he will do what his captors want. He also suffers a severe blow to the head. Other than that, it's a general warning for blood.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is like... 4 days late now but I have good reason. I have spent the week preparing for surgery which will have me laid up for weeks. As a result THIS FIC WILL BE ON SEMI-HIATUS while I recover. The good news is, almost all of this fic is pre-written (maybe a chapter left to go) so it WILL be finished, I just might not be able to write/update very regularly while I'm high on morphine for the post-operative pain.
> 
> So, enjoy this chapter!

_ The dream has the sickly purple light Lance had learned to associate with the Galra, simultaneously too bright and too dim, accentuating shadows, the kind that soaked into his skin, poisonous. _

_ Lance is bodiless, floating immobile above the scene, unable to do anything but watch. Keith bursts into the room, running, clutching his shoulder- no, his knee - no his ribs - it feels like Lance has seen this scene play out before already, and maybe he has, the briefest impressions of Keith staggering around injured, flitting through his mind before they are gone, like smoke, too incorporeal to grasp and examine any closer. _

_ Just enough for Lance to know exactly what happens next. _

_ Sometimes it is Haggar, sometimes it is Zarkon, sometimes it is Lotor, sometimes it is a random Galra soldier or a rogue Mamorite, but someone always bursts through the door behind Keith, making some smug remark when they realised at the same time that Keith did that the room is a dead end. Sometimes it is Lance or Shiro or one of the other Paladins that comes in after him, eyes a blank sort of gold with teeth too sharp. _

_ Keith will turn, realise his mistake, raise his knife - the marmoran one - and face his enemy, hunched over and in pain, something eerily blank, frighteningly dead in his eyes, like he too is remembering all the times he has done this before and knows there is only one outcome. _

_ He charges anyway. It is always this way, Lance thinks. Haggar doesn’t need to step any closer. Zarkon only needs to laugh. The Galra soldier only needs to raise his weapon. The corrupted, wrong version of Lance only needs to grin and Keith charges straight into the fight, nothing and no one to hold him back. He’s like a feral wounded animal, all claws and spitting with fear. _

_ It takes a long time and no time at all. Haggar hits him with her purple-black lightning and Keith screams. Zarkon reaches out with arms that are far too long to make sense and snatches Keith around the neck, crushing the breath from him. Lotor just stands and watches with a smile as a shot hits Keith in the back out of nowhere and he goes down. The galra soldier’s blaster forges a new hole in Keith’s chest. Evil, yellow-eyed Shiro plunges his galra hand through Keith’s gut. The Mamorite slashes once, drawing a deep red smile beneath Keith’s chin and he chokes, eyes bugging out before he collapses. _

_ All through it, Lance watches it happen, tries to run to him, to help him somehow, but each step takes him further from the puddle of dark fabric and black hair collapsed on the floor. He screams, but all that comes out of his mouth is a whistle, quiet and breathy even though he puts his whole body behind making the sound, nothing comes out and he can do nothing. He can be nothing. He is nothing. Not when it counts. Not when it comes to Keith. Never when it comes to Keith, because he is never there to stop it. _

Lance woke himself up with a cut of cry that came out as a sob. His shoulders shook and he sat up, curling in on himself as the memory of the dream faded until all that was left was the nausea and the image of Keith, not a dream this time, but real, bleeding and muttering his name like a prayer. The ghost of his future self’s voice floating through his consciousness.

_ Keith leaves... He never comes back... He’d been killed... I wasn’t there... _

Something was buzzing under Lance’s skin, a need to move, to do something that wasn’t just  _ lying there _ . He wanted to run, to fight, to scream. He was out of bed and out the door before he realised what he was going. He couldn’t be alone. The silence of the castle’s night cycle would surely suffocate him. He trembled like a candle in the wind, one gust away from being snuffed out.

The door in front of him opened after the fifth knock.

Hunk blinked at him. Distantly, Lance registered the moment when his best friend’s brain switched on, eyes sharpening in the dark. He reached out without a word and pulled Lance inside, wrapping him in a gentle hug and sitting him down on the bed, mussed with sleep.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t- I shouldn’t have come but I couldn’t be alone and I-I just needed-’

The panic was starting to recede, but that was almost no better. The emotions caused by the dream he could barely remember only served to cover up the real ones that had been building ever since he had met McClain, had heard those words and in the nighttime liminal space of Hunk’s room, in that unnameable time between late night and early morning, Lance had no walls, no protection around his heart to keep them at bay. 

‘It’s okay, buddy,’ Hunk murmured. ‘You’re not alone.’

And that was the thing about Hunk. He was a solid presence in Lance’s life. He’d known Lance for so long, had seen Lance on his worst days and saw through Lance’s many facades.

Keith and Pidge were going to die. He couldn’t get McClain’s words out of his head.  _ I wasn’t there _ ... He felt so helpless he couldn’t breathe.

‘Do you want to tell me what this is about?’ Hunk asked quietly, rubbing his hand up and down Lance’s arm.

‘Keith is going to-’ Lance’s voice choked off. He couldn’t finish the sentence, but then again, he didn’t need to.

Hunk’s hand stilled. ‘I know how you feel,’ he said slowly. He paused. ‘For the most part, at least.’

‘Why aren’t you... freaking out?’ Lance whispered between shuddering, shallow breaths.

‘I know how Pidge dies,’ he said. ‘Or... I know how she died in the other timeline. I know it might not happen in this version of reality and I know that even if it does, it’s a long, long way off, but it doesn’t make it feel any less horrible every time I see Lotor wearing her armour, or catch my older self looking so sad while he watches her. She’s one of my best friends, we understand each other. You know I love all of you. You, Pidge, Keith, Shiro, Allura, Coran, I love all of you, so I get it, man. I do, but I don’t think I love this team in the same way you do. I... I don’t think I love  _ Keith _ in the same way that you do.’

Lance stilled. Some knee-jerk reaction, something at the core of his programming rejected that statement, even as it didn’t quite make sense in his head. He heard the words, but they didn’t seem to fit, not really. ‘I don’t... understand,’ he whispered.

‘You do. You just don’t want to.’

Lance shook his head. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t know why I’m reacting this way to something that  _ might not happen _ , I don’t know why the thought of Keith-’ he choked. ‘Why that hurts more than the thought of Pidge... The thought of Pidge dying. I don’t know why I’ve watched Keith, watched all of you get hurt so many times by now and yet when I saw him today-’ His fingers twisted in Hunk’s blanket. He stared at them, even though he couldn’t actually see anything in the dark. He felt like he had been punched in the sternum. His chest felt bruised, cracked open. ‘I love Pidge. The thought of her dying is so... horrible, I don’t... I can’t even begin to describe it. But the thought of  _ Keith... _ It makes my chest ache. It actually  _ hurts _ .’

Hunk shifted. He paused, and Lance got the feeling that his best friend was choosing his words very carefully, like he was unsure what to say. Finally, he said, ‘Lance, do you... Are you  _ in love _ with Keith?’

Lance’s fingers stilled. He stopped breathing. He conjured Keith’s face in his mind, the little half-smile he sometimes wore when he thought he was being funny. He thought of the moment he had tried so hard to forget, Keith holding him even after he had been so insufferable, with that achingly soft look of relief because they had captured Sendak and Lance was injured, but _alive_ and the thought had first entered his pain-drunk, concussed mind that maybe they were a good team after all. He thought of Keith, the Black Paladin, the way he had looked up at Lance when the Black Lion had chosen him, that little aborted breath, that pure moment of unguarded hurt, of uncertainty, the way it had felt when Keith had looked,  _ really _ looked at him like Lance was something he valued, and maybe that had been what that stupid rivalry had been all about anyway? From day one, he had felt like one of those strange screws you get when you buy furniture you have to build yourself. The instructions said he was necessary, he came as part of the package, but he didn’t seem to serve a real purpose. 

He had watched Keith fly at the Garrison once, that feeling of pure envy boiling in his gut because Keith had made it look so  _ easy _ . It felt like everything that Keith had just... came to him, when Lance had to work so damn  _ hard _ for everything he had, every skill, every place he occupied. At the Garrison, Lance had wanted to be Keith, then he had wanted to prove to everyone else that he could be just as good as Keith once the hotshot washed out. Then, they had met properly for the first time and here was the ultimate test of his worth. If Keith, the Garrison’s rising star, the trailblazer, the pilot Lance had spent so long working to get to the same level as - if Keith, of all people, saw him as a rival, then maybe Lance was worth something after all. Maybe if the others saw them as rivals, they would think so too.

But... that way of thinking hadn’t lasted. That desire, to be recognised, to be declared worthy of  _ something _ , had stayed with him, but it had changed its shape somewhere between then and now. He still searched for his place in the team - if he couldn’t be the best pilot like Keith, or the leader, like Shiro, or the genius like Pidge or the warm source of comfort like Hunk, then maybe he could be the sharpshooter? Or the loverboy, or the team’s charismatic hero who fought just as well with words as with weapons or... or  _ something _ . But some days that just felt like a fever dream, a fantasy that was pleasant to think about but he could never reach. His rivalry with Keith, though, that was different. Somewhere along the road, if Lance was being honest with himself, somewhere between “ _ who are you?” _ and  _ “Shiro’s gone” _ , Lance had found himself prodding Keith with their rivalry just for the reaction, because at least if Keith was glaring at him, he was looking at him, he could  _ see _ him.

Before Red had claimed Lance as Keith’s right hand man, Lance hadn’t been able to comprehend he and Keith being anything other than rivals, hadn’t been able to believe they could be  _ more _ . The thing is... Keith wasn’t any of the things Lance had thought he was when Shiro had been the Black Paladin. He wasn’t hotheaded or emo, he was just passionate. He  _ cared so much _ it hurt Lance to watch, because Lance cared that much too. Keith wasn’t dense, he just saw the universe in a different way, understood it on a different level. Keith wasn’t perfect, he struggled just like the rest of them, fought for everything he had just as much as Lance did. Perhaps even more so, and that... Somehow, that changed everything.

‘I know you,’ Hunk murmured. He didn’t seem to want or need Lance to reply. ‘I’ve known you too long not to see that there is something different about the way you are with him now. I’ve never seen you follow anyone. You’ve always been a ringleader in everything that wasn’t fighting this war, but you follow him. In some ways I think you always have.’ 

There was a moment of clarity then, sitting in Hunk’s bedroom, listening to him talk about all the things Lance hadn’t even been able to explain himself. It was like his brain had finally caught up to his heart and he could finally understand this feeling, this ache in his chest, this vague, desperate panic humming under his skin.

He didn’t name it, he didn’t need to. He could see it now, the shape and colour of the feeling, a camera refocused, all the blurred edges suddenly cast in sharp relief. A strange but welcome feeling of calm washed over him. His muscles relaxed. The itch beneath his skin receded. He could breathe deeply again.

‘Maybe,’ Lance whispered to Hunk. ‘I... I think you’re right.’

Hunk squeezed his shoulder. ‘Does it make you feel any better?’

Lance found himself nodding. He was suddenly aware that his limbs were heavy with exhaustion. Sleep called to him. He stood up. ‘Thanks, man. I... thanks.’

Hunk seemed to understand. ‘Anytime.’

Lance returned to his own room. He did not dream.

* * *

In the light of day (or at least the artificial light of the Castle’s day-cycle) Lance’s conversation with Hunk seemed both less startling and less certain in his mind. It wasn't that he didn't believe he felt...  _ something _ for Keith, since now it had been pointed out to him, he couldn't stop noticing how his mind wandered back to Keith in the healing pod up in the med-bay (scheduled to emerge some time before lunch, all going well) or the fact that Keith had gone off on his own  _ again, _ (though apparently he had been given Shiro’s... not permission - technically that wasn't Shiro’s job anymore now Keith was the leader - but his blessing at any rate) or how McClain’s attitude and actions made a depressing amount of sense now that Lance had some idea of how the rest of his life was going to go.

The problem was, Lance had no idea what to do with this new information. For one, he had been determinedly setting his eyes on Allura, who had finally begun to act friendly towards him, with almost deliberate feeling because Allura was lightyears out of anyone’s league and she was safe, she was untouchable and gorgeous and would never date a mere mortal in another ten thousand years (so perhaps it made sense that she ended up with Shiro in the future, because Lance was convinced Shiro was in a league of his own too, only the former Black Paladin didn't seem to know it). Allura was safe, because Lance could never have her. Also, she was female, which made her... if not the best direction to steer his affection, then the most obvious. (Pidge didn't count. Pidge was a weird and wonderful combination of traits that Lance would never, in a million years, figure out how to handle in a relationship and anyway, she was like a little sister to him. Dating her would be just...  _ wrong _ ).

Keith was decidedly not safe. For one thing, Lance will quietly, in the privacy of his own head, take responsibility for the fact that he and Keith’s relationship had not gotten off to a great start. They had fought and bickered and Lance was pretty sure he had been _this close_ to getting a fist in the face at some points early on. But he was also just... dangerous by nature. Keith could be lethal and impulsive and everything Lance was not. Keith isolated himself from everyone (except Shiro, and maybe, more recently, Lance who, no matter what anyone said, took his job as Voltron’s right hand deadly seriously and, as far as he was concerned, that meant supporting Keith in his job however he could. By some miracle, Keith had started allowing him to do just that. Boy that had been a shock, but a welcome one. Shit. He was so screwed).

Lance could deal with Keith being insufferable sometimes, with Keith being sullen and moody every now and then. He could definitely deal with those rare times when Keith got that glint in his eye, that daring, crazy look that promised adventure and adrenaline and crazy stunts (like flying a hoverbike weighed down by four teens and an unconscious, miraculously not-dead garrison pilot over a  _ freaking cliff) _ which always ended in some creative way of letting off steam after months of tension born from fighting in an intergalactic war. Since Shiro had disappeared, Lance hadn't seen that look in Keith's eye, but he remembered it from the early days, when the severity of the situation was less ingrained into their bones. Before they were forced to grow up too fast. Before Keith felt the burden of leadership so keenly placed on his shoulders.

What Lance could not deal with was when Keith’s impulsive nature got him hurt - or worse and that was the most terrible thing about this whole situation. According to McClain and the records they'd managed to see on the future team’s cat Data, Keith had less than a year to live.  _ Less than a year _ . Even if - and it was very much a hypothetical  _ if _ \- even if Lance pursued something romantic with Keith, it would all end in tragedy anyway. Keith would leave to join the Blade of Marmora and he would die behind enemy lines,  _ alone _ , and Lance would be left behind with something vital now missing from his person. Like McClain, who despite insisting otherwise seemed to have some hole in his life he'd learned to skirt around, some unnameable sorrow he'd long ago walled off.

Keith wasn't untouchable. By now, Lance had seen him vulnerable, hurting, furious with himself. He'd watched Keith at his softest, comforting refugees and playing games with alien kids. He'd watched as Keith listened to Lance's concerns and looked out for this team he lead so reluctantly, had seen how much Keith  _ cared _ .

Lance wasn't sure he could handle being let inside Keith’s defences only to have it all ripped away. That, more than anything, scared him.

Lance sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face as he set his empty bowl in the Altean equivalent of a dishwasher. This was all becoming such a tangled horrible mess.

‘Hey, Un- uh, hey, Lance,’ a voice said from the doorway and Lance spun around. Standing behind him was Akira.

‘Hey!’ he said, coughing awkwardly to cover his surprise. ‘Didn’t hear you come in. What’s up?’

Akira shrugged and tossed her black bangs out of her face. ‘I was going to ask you the same question,’ she said. ‘You okay?’

Lance nodded and smiled for her, leaning back on the counter. ‘Yeah, I just had a late night, that’s all.’

Akira frowned. ‘Yeah, me too. I... I heard you were the one to find Keith back on Keikrops. That can’t have been pretty.’

Lance winced at the memory, stomach rolling with the phantom scent of stale blood in the air. ‘No, it really wasn’t, but he’s in a healing pod now so he’ll be fine.’  _ For now _ , he didn’t say. By the look on Akira’s face, he didn’t need to. 

After a moment, she put on her brightest smile. ‘Hey, are you doing anything now?’ she asked. Lance shook his head. Shiro had made the decision not to run any missions, barring a real emergency, until a solution could be found to getting the future team Voltron to their own reality. He had been planning on heading to the training room if no one else was there and taking out some of his frustration out in target practice (god, he was obviously taking this Red Paladin thing too seriously if he was picking up those kinds of habits from Keith), but his heart wasn’t really in it just now.

Akira’s smile grew sharper.

‘What?’ Lance asked slowly. 

Akira raised an eyebrow in a way that definitely promised Lance would regret saying yes to whatever she had planned. ‘You wanna get your ass kicked on Killbot Phantasm 1?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Comments might not be replied to right away, but reading them would make my day so much more bearable while I'm waiting tomorrow!)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back! The last few weeks have been crazy as I recover from surgery and start uni again (I hate essays eurgh). The next few weeks are looking really busy for me too so, I don't think I'll have the same updating schedule as before just yet, but there are only a few chapters left after this so hopefully it won't be too bad.
> 
> There are a few things I wish I could change about this chapter but I decided to leave them in rather than totally restructure it because I'm lazy by nature and also have uni to deal with so I made the judgement it wasn't bad enough compared to the rest of the fic to post.

Keith stepped onto the bridge with Allura, Shiro and Coran behind him. He hadn’t even been out of the healing pod for an hour when they got the call from Kolivan, demanding to hear Keith’s report of everything that had happened with the Araknei. In vivid detail. Twice. By the time Kolivan was finally satisfied and ended the call, Keith’s fists were clenched tight, the remembered pain of his hand being impaled ghosting under his skin, not helped by the fact that there was now a faint pink mark on the back of his hand, visible in the window of his fingerless gloves.

Keith deliberately unclenched his fingers and straightened his shoulders. He was the goddamn Black Paladin and he was going to fucking act like it.

‘Get some rest, Keith,’ Shiro instructed, watching him with something like sympathy on his face. Of course Shiro would be able to relate. ‘That was tough.’

Keith nodded, though he didn’t much feel like resting. ‘Yeah, see ya,’ he mumbled and turned and left through the door. His feet took him towards the training room, fuelled by some sort of desperate need to _move_ after being tied down, helpless and hurting for so long.

‘Keith! You’re awake!’ Lance exclaimed from further down the hall. Keith briefly remembered the horrified look on Lance’s face when he’d found him and averted his gaze. From behind him, Akira appeared, her head coming up to just past his shoulder, looking particularly smug. She watched Keith with a strange sort of curiosity that made his skin crawl. Right. He was dead to her. Of course she would look at him weirdly. He had gone on that damn mission in part because it had taken him away from the future team’s disconcerting looks and had nearly gotten himself killed instead. What a cruel stroke of irony.

‘Hey, Lance,’ Keith muttered. ‘Thanks for the save back there.’

‘Anytime,’ Lance said, smiling too brightly. Akira giggled.

Keith shot her a look. ‘What?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It’s just I can see it now.’ She tugged on Lance’s sleeve, sending him a pointed look. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her. She just rolled her eyes at him. Keith had been gone three days and they were already at the silent conversation stage? The thought set him on edge. Keith didn't trust this future team Voltron as far as he could throw them and here Lance was, palling it up with the Blue Paladin. _Figures_.

‘Well,’ Akira announced with another obvious look in Lance’s direction. ‘I’m going to go find mo- Allura. I’ll see you guys later. Thanks for playing with me, Lance!’

Lance’s eyes darkened a little, for a moment taking on a very Pidge-like manic gleam. ‘I'll get you next time,’ he promised and waved vaguely as Akira walked off.

'No you wont!'

He ignored her and set his eyes on Keith. He had the same look on his face that he’d had when he had accepted Keith being chosen as Black Paladin and just like before, it threatened to steal Keith’s breath away. ‘You okay?’ Lance asked quietly.

Keith shrugged. ‘Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’ his voice sounded forced to his own ears and Keith struggled not to wince at the sound.

‘You’ve just been through a traumatic experience,’ Lance murmured. ‘I saw.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Keith replied and decided he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. ‘I’m heading to the training deck.’

To his surprise, Lance’s eyes brightened. ‘Hey, can I come with you?’

Keith stared at him. ‘Why?’

Lance had the gall to look sheepish. Lance _never_ looked sheepish. ‘I thought maybe you could... teach me. How to sword fight, I mean.’

Keith gaped. ‘But-’ he spluttered. ‘Why? I mean- Lance, you’re a _sniper_.’

Lance shrugged. ‘Yeah, I know, but... Kira said-’ In spite of himself, Keith scoffed and Lance frowned at him but continued. ‘She said that McClain’s bayard can turn into a sword.’ _What?_ ‘I was hoping you might give me some tips so I could be ready to use it when I figure out how to unlock it.’

‘Okay,’ Keith said before he even thought about it and was halfway to regretting it when Lance’s face brightened.

‘Really?’ he asked. ‘Thanks, buddy!’

Together they started walking down the hall towards the training deck. After a moment of slightly awkward silence, Lance said, ‘So.... Keith, uh, what’s your deal with Akira?’

‘I don’t have a deal with Akira,’ Keith replied, fixing his eyes straight ahead.

‘So you weren’t glaring at her before?’ Lance pressed.

‘No, I wasn’t,’ Keith insisted.

‘Really? ‘Cause it looked to me like you were-’

‘You will just trust anybody, won’t you?’ Keith snapped, uncaring that he had just interrupted Lance.

Lance appeared genuinely confused. ‘I don’t... _What?_ ’

Keith flailed his hands in the air. ‘I mean... How much do you actually know this girl? This mysterious Altean turns up out of literal nowhere and you just...’

‘Just _what_ , Keith?’

Keith glared at the floor. Lance's readiness to trust had gotten them into trouble several times before. ‘Don’t be dense.’

‘I’m not!’ Lance protested. He grabbed Keith’s arm to stop him from continuing his march down the hallway. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You don’t know anything about her,’ Keith said quietly. ‘How can you trust her when you don’t know anything about her?’

‘Keith... She’s-’ _Beautiful, friendly, apparently likes you-_ ‘Allura’s daughter.’

‘I- _what_?’

Lance shrugged. ‘I trust her parents every day of my life, why _wouldn’t_ I trust her?’

Keith took a moment to find his voice. ‘She’s Allura’s- she’s- _really?_ ’

Lance grinned. ‘Her full name is Akira Shirogane,’ he said.

Keith nearly choked on air. ‘She’s Shiro’s-’

‘Yep.’

‘Oh my god,’ Keith felt the urge to laugh in sheer shock. ‘How did I not see that?’

‘Well, you haven’t exactly been hanging around lately,’ Lance said. ‘How would you know?’

Keith fell silent, then the full implications settled over him. He made a face. ‘Dude, do you have a _death wish_?’

Lance’s face went blank. ‘Why would you say that?’

Keith shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know, it’s just the way you two were just now, coming out of that dark room and if she’s Shiro’s daughter, he or Allura might probably _kill_ you-’

‘Ohhhhh no, stop right there,’ Lance held his hands out. ‘I’m not _stupid_ , mullet. I’m not about to go flirting with our friends’ daughter, _hell_ no.’ He made a disgusted face. ‘For one, I’m pretty sure she nearly called me “Uncle Lance” this morning so that’s just gross, what the hell, man?’

Keith shrugged helplessly. ‘But- I saw-’

Lance shook his head. ‘Dude. We were playing video games to distract me from the fact that I was worried about _you_ and Hunk and Pidge were busy trying to sort out this whole other realities thing and you were in a healing pod after being _tortured_.’

‘What was that whole silent conversation you guys were having before then?’ Keith tried.

Lance shrugged helplessly. ‘I have no idea. She said that McClain practically helped raise her so they know each other really well. She must have been trying to tell me something, but I’m not him yet. I don’t know her well enough to figure it out.’

Keith nodded slowly. They started walking again. ‘Okay then.’ They reached the elevator and there was another bout of tense silence as they traveled down to the training deck.

‘So...’ Lance began, then stalled for a moment. ‘We never really got to talk about the whole... future me basically saying...’

‘That I'm dead in under twelve months?’ Keith finished with forced nonchalance. ‘What’s there to say?’

‘Aren’t you... scared?’ Lance asked haltingly. Keith shook his head and Lance made a dismayed face.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Keith snapped. Great. He’d only been back and awake for a few hours and he was already in a bad mood. ‘I don’t _want_ to die,’ he elaborated when Lance just stared at him. ‘But we’re fighting a war. That means we all have a chance of not making it home. I’m just glad it's me and not... not any of you.’

Lance fidgeted with his fingers. ‘Thats...’ he swallowed. ‘I don’t know. I just...’ He maneuvered his face into a smile. ‘I’m your right hand man, right? I just wanted to make sure that you knew you could... you know, talk to me, if you wanted to.’

‘I’m fine,’ Keith said. It was a lie and from the look on Lance’s face, he knew it too. ‘But... Thanks for the offer.’

Lance ducked his head. ‘Of course. All part of the job, right. You’re our leader now, but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself.’

Something twisted in Keith’s gut, that echo of _you’re not worthy_ that chased his thoughts whenever he was reminded of his new role. ‘Shiro did.’

‘Shiro is... Shiro. You’re not.’

Keith scoffed, but he felt slightly sick. ‘Ha. Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

Lance raised his hands in a sudden panic. ‘No! No, that’s not what I mean. You’re not Shiro in that yeah, your different, but you’re not _worse_. No way.’

The elevator door opened and they stepped out, taking the few steps down the corridor to the training deck. Once inside, Keith unhooked his bayard from his belt and drew his Marmora knife from it's sheath at his back, handing it over to Lance with only the slightest hesitation. That knife was a part of Keith, but if anyone had proven themselves trustworthy over the last few months, Lance had. He took his role as Red Paladin so seriously, it was something Keith hadn’t expected. It made him wonder what else Lance was hiding under his veneer of bravado and flirtatious swagger. And _why_.

‘Woah,’ Lance said, gripping the knife awkwardly. ‘Okay so-’

‘First thing,’ Keith said. He reached out and corrected Lance’s grip so he didn’t drop it or accidentally hurt himself.

‘Yeah, okay, that actually feels better,’ Lance admitted, a smile slowly spreading over his face.

‘Don’t fall over,’ Keith said and lunged at him. Lance yelped and raised his knife to block, but overbalanced and had to catch himself before he hit the floor. Keith stood over him, pointing the tip of his sword in front of Lance’s face to make sure he held his attention. ‘Center your weight so you can stay upright,’ he instructed. ‘You’re no good if you can be tripped so easily. Keep your feet apart.’ Lance nodded and gently nudged Keith’s blade away from his face with the marmora knife, climbing back to his feet. Keith lunged again and this time their blades actually connected before Lance took a step backwards. Keith used one foot to swipe Lance’s legs out from under him.

‘Hey!’ Lance protested. ‘No fair!’

Keith shrugged. ‘You didn’t keep yourself planted.’

‘You tripped me!’

‘Of course I did.’ He hauled Lance to his feet this time. They went again. And again. And again.

‘So... future Voltron,’ Lance began, the first time he managed to avoid crashing to the floor when they clashed. ‘Crazy stuff right?’

Keith let out the soft ‘huh’ that passed for laughter nowadays and nudged his feet with his own boot to better secure his stance. ‘You could say that. I'm not convinced they're us though. I mean, I was convinced you'd end up being the next generation’s version of Coran, not... not Shiro.’

‘Not the next generation’s version of _you_ , you mean,’ Lance corrected, like that honestly felt more accurate to him. ‘I mean, you piloted Red when Shiro was Black Paladin and now you're the Head of Voltron and I'm in Red so if I'm going to be the Black Paladin someday too, I'd be more like you than Shiro.’

‘I hope not,’ Keith muttered and swung at him. Their blades collided with a harsh clang. ‘You don't want to be a Black Paladin like me.’

Lance scoffed and shoved Keith’s bayard off him. ‘Aw, come on, man, don't be like that. I know you didn't want to be the Black Paladin when Shiro disappeared and I get it, I do. But we have him back now. You're allowed to be the Black Paladin now without, you know, replacing anybody.’

Keith couldn't meet his eyes. His grip on the hilt of his sword tightened. He swung again. ‘Thats...’ He shouldn't say it. Lance was looking at him to lead, to be _great_ and decisive and everything Keith _wasn't._

 _‘_ That’s what?’ Lance prompted watching Keith’s face rather than the lethal weapon in his hands, and Keith grimaced, shoving him in the chest with his free hand and tripping him again with his foot.

‘Stay aware of your body at all times,’ he instructed, then at Lance’s look, he answered his question after a deep prepatory breath. ‘That wasn't the only reason that I didn't want to be the Black Paladin,’ he admitted and _oh fucking finally._ Saying it felt like a weight off his shoulders _._ Shiro didn't understand, no matter how many times Keith tried to tell him, was seemingly being willfully ignorant of Keith’s distress and Keith hated it. They were supposed to know each other better than that. Instead, he had just felt more and more alone the longer he remained the Black Paladin.

Lance didn’t stand again this time, just sat up. ‘You... you don't want to be the Black Paladin?’ he asked, surprise colouring his quiet voice. ‘Why not?’

Taking the unspoken invitation, since Lance clearly wasn’t concentrating on learning how to fight, Keith sat down opposite him, resting his elbows on his bent knees. ‘It's just... I'm not a leader, Lance. I'm the loner, like Pidge said. I'm not... I'm not built that way. To be the head... you need to be aware of every one of your other paladins at once, what they're thinking, what they're doing, what their strengths and weaknesses are and how best to use the strengths and protect the weaknesses. Not only that, but you've gotta know what every one of the enemy is doing and then constantly be on the lookout for reinforcements or something attempting to sneak past our defenses. I... I can't do it. It's too much at once.’

‘You struggle with focus?’ Lance asked, head tilting in curiosity, like something had slotted into place in his mind. ‘That's it?’

Keith shook his head. ‘I can focus fine. Too well sometimes. I'm just... not built to focus on more than one thing at a time. If something attacks on one side, all of my attention diverts to there, so I'm not watching when we get flanked by another battlecruiser or a swarm of drones and it leaves me... I don't know. Jittery? Highly strung and anxious until I can't concentrate on anything and we end up getting blasted out of the sky!’

Lance was silent for a moment. Keith realised he'd managed to get himself worked up, tried to get his breathing and phantom anxiety back under control.

‘Okay,’ Lance said. ‘What would make that easier for you?’ The question took Keith so much by surprise, he didn't answer right away. Lance was really going to just... _roll_ with this fundamental flaw?

‘It's just...’ Lance hesitated, staring down at his hands wound together in his lap. ‘Sometimes I can't concentrate on the simple stuff, you know? I end up using a lot of anxious energy just... doing nothing and it gets me into trouble. But I figured out there were things I could do to make life easier for me by managing those things, you know? So all we need to do is figure out what makes things easier for you.’

Keith’s brows furrowed as he thought. It was... something he hadn't considered before. ‘I... don't know?’

Lance tapped a finger to his chin, glancing up at the ceiling in thought. ‘Okay. So your main problem is that there's too much going on you can't really... process it all properly right?’ Keith nodded, the very idea of admitting such a profound weakness at odds with his desperation for a solution because so far, his only plan of giving the Black Lion and the leadership role she came with back to Shiro wasn't really working.

‘So... it seems to me that the obvious solution is... to not try to concentrate on everything at once.’

Keith blinked. ‘What?’

Lance raised an eyebrow. ‘We're a team, Keith. You're fine when you're just in your lion, it's Voltron that's the problem, isn't it? But when we're Voltron, we're working as a single unit which means yeah, you're the leader, but Voltron isn't solely your responsibility. You've got me, Pidge, Hunk and Allura fighting right there with you and you've got Shiro on the comms if you're really truly stuck. What you need is a plan that uses us so you don't get overwhelmed. A plan that helps you share some of the responsibility by working together.’

‘But... You all have your jobs to do. I’m the leader. This is my responsibility.’

‘You’re not shirking your responsibilities by asking for help, Keith.’

‘But...’

But it... it was so blindingly simple that Keith nearly wanted to laugh out loud. Or cry. All that anguish for so long over something that, as it had turned out, could be solved just by letting someone else help him come up with a solution.

‘I... I never thought of that,’ he murmured and that was the second failure Keith had admitted to Lance in five minutes. What the _hell._  Lance just... made it so _easy._

Lance laughed. ‘Of course you didn't! I’m your right hand man, remember? I know you're not used to relying on other people or working together as a team. Everyone has always known that and we follow you into battle anyway. We don't expect you to be perfect, Keith. We just expect you to do your best.’

Keith scowled. ‘Yeah, well my best isn't exactly doing much good for the universe is it?’

Lance shook his head. ‘You don't get it. You've been flying with one hand tied behind your back since we switched Lions. If you let us help you, your best could get even better.’

‘But... _How_?’

Lance tapped a finger to his chin, thinking. ‘Well, for one, I’ll keep a better eye out when I can so you don’t have to. Pidge’s lion has the scanners so we could ask her to try and set up a feed on your dash to tell you where everything is, right?’

Keith considered it. Cautiously, he said, ‘Okay...’

Lance shifted forward slightly, fingers tapping his knee absently. ‘Another thing that might help is like... pre-planning things, you know? Like, say we’re going to escort some refugees again. Having a plan for what to do if we get attacked from behind that you can immediately put into action means you can be proactive, yeah?’

‘I plan ahead,’ Keith protested.

Lance laughed. ‘Sure, that’s why you have a reputation for being the instinctive hot-head.’ Keith bristled. ‘I’m kidding! I’m kidding!’ Lance held up his hands in a show of non-agression. ‘I’m trying to help you, here.’

Keith relaxed his shoulders. ‘I know. Thanks.’

Lance sent him a startlingly soft smile. ‘That’s what I’m here for. I got you, buddy.’

Keith hesitantly smiled back. ‘I know.’

‘Also...’ Lance hesitated before he continued, just long enough to make Keith nervous. ‘I think you should talk to Shiro about this.’

Keith grimaced. ‘I try all the time! He just tells me I’m doing fine and to believe in myself more like this is just an issue of self-confidence!’

Lance frowned, thinking. ‘Did you tell him about your... problems specifically?’

‘No, I-’

‘Tell him,’ Lance insisted. ‘He might be able to help in ways I can’t. He knows exactly what the job requires more than anyone. Maybe-’

Keith shook his head and stood up. ‘No.’ How to explain to Lance that the prospect of bringing this up with Shiro made him feel sick? Every time they argued - and they were always arguing now - Keith left wanting to cry or scream or punch something. Talking to Shiro about being the Black Paladin never ended well. Keith couldn’t bring himself to do it unless it was a last resort. ‘I... can’t.’

Lance tilted his head for a moment, then his face lit up. ‘Well, if you’re adamant about not talking to Shiro, talk to McClain instead! You’ve already talked to me, so you might not even have to explain anything and he’s been the Black Paladin for years. He could probably help you out much better than I could, at least.’

Keith's instinct was to say no. He couldn't trust these time/reality/whatever-travellers, could he? All he had was their word to explain who they were and where they had come from. Half of their explanation didn't even make sense, and it was difficult to take them at face value when they looked like his friends... but with subtle changes that made them all...  _wrong_ somehow.

‘Aw, come on, Keith,’ Lance said, like he was reading Keith's mind. ‘McClain saved your life, remember?’

‘ _You_ saved my life,’ Keith countered.

Lance shrugged. ‘He's me, so technically I saved you twice, but I couldn't have done it without him and the rest of our team. Talk to him. He knows the Black Lion better than I do. If anyone would have any idea as to how she can help you get over this, then he will.’

That... wasn’t actually the worst idea Lance had ever had. ‘I’ll think about it,’ Keith allowed.

Lance grinned. ‘We good, then? You wanna continue?’ he jumped to his feet and helped Keith up, readying his knife again.

‘Yeah, sure.’ Keith swung at him again, but already he was thinking of the possibilities his conversation with Lance had brought up. If he could find a way to get better at this, everything changed. Maybe... Maybe he could do this after all.

He had to talk to McClain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith's problem is based shamelessly on my own experience of sensory overload especially when driving. Its not fun.
> 
> As a side note, because I never know when to stop apparently, if I were to write a fic set in the future!Team Voltron's universe (fighting the Great Altean Commonwealth, Black Paladin!Lance, Older!Shiro, Matt/Hunk etc) would anyone be interested in reading it? I have ideas (of course!) but wont actually write it unless there's interest. The other idea I have is a sequel to this fic which explores what happens to the team after the future versions leave and how they develop that may vary from canon.
> 
> If you would like to read either of these ideas, let me know in the comments, or send me an ask/PM me on Tumblr at @seethestarsalittlecloser


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhhh life got crazy. The term went by so fast and I was drowning in assignments as well as dealing with post-op stuff and then I got distracted by the Avengers: Infinity War movie because I am also, regrettably, a Marvel stan, and then the season 6 trailer dropped and I lost my mind so yeah. Life has been intense both in fandom and real life.   
> (Come scream at me in the comments or on my tumblr @seethestarsalittlecloser but please don't spoil anything if you're commenting thanks!) 
> 
> That being said, I think I did really well on the exam I had today so to celebrate here's chapter 7! Aaaaand it's a loooong one (for me)! There is.... a lot of Allura's POV in this chapter, both Future and Present versions. So just in case it wasn't clear in the chapter itself, the first scene is Future!Allura and the second scene is Present!Allura.
> 
> Also, please excuse the blatant pseudoscience gibberish. I am very bad at physics and had other things to do than research so this is totally made up. My bad.
> 
> Enjoy!

The Red Paladin awoke with Akira snuggled into her side. She remembered the nightmare that had driven her to her daughter's room, propelled by the need to be near her family, to reassure herself that they were alright. She couldn't know how her husband was faring right now, but the one small mercy of her daughter being a paladin of Voltron was that she could keep her close, even in this other time, this other reality.

Silently as she could, she untangled herself from her daughter and stood, sparing a moment to tuck a black lock of the sleeping girl’s hair behind one pointed ear before stepping out into the hall. 

It was still early. No one would be awake yet, so she had time to collect herself before breakfast. Allura turned and headed for her own room, a guest bedroom several doors down, when she spotted a familiar back. A pang of something Allura struggled to untangle twisted in her chest, her nightmare replaying in her head in fast forward for a moment at the sight.

_ A lit purple hand.  _

_ A horrified scream.  _

_ A dead alien body. _

‘Shiro!’ she called out as he turned a corner and ran to catch up with him. She found him near the lift and stepped in just as the doors closed.

‘You need something, Princess?’ he asked stiffly. He took in her appearance, the old nightgown, thick white locks curling around her face, still mussed from sleep, then deliberately looked ahead again.

Allura bit her lip. Knowing what she knew, the differences between this man and the one she would pledge her life to were startlingly obvious. The sight of him uncovered a grief she had long thought scarred over. 

‘I... I wanted to tell you something,’ she hedged, unable to stop herself. The words had been buried too long to hold back now. 

Shiro, the man who thought he was Shiro, raised an eyebrow and stepped out of the elevator. ‘If this is about Akira-

‘This isn’t about Akira,’ Allura interrupted, heart picking up as she considered her words carefully. ‘This is about you and the team.’

Shiro stopped and turned to face her properly. ‘What about me?’ he asked, tone slipping into that businesslike voice Allura knew so well.

‘I just- Oh, Shiro,’ she whispered, upon seeing where they were, too distracted to notice right away. Shiro had brought them to the Lion hangars. She hesitated to follow him as he made his way to where the Black Lion would be waiting. She knew first hand how intimate the bond between Paladin and Lion could be and had no desire to intrude, but he paused when he didn't hear her footsteps following him, turning toward her. Slowly, she took a few steps in his direction and he waited, so she took that as an invitation and returned to his side.

They reached the Black Lion without another word passing between them. He had that look on his face, the one where he wanted to say something but was holding back. Allura knew the feeling. They stood in silence, breathing in the early morning stillness of the castle, the gentle warmth of standing close to another living creature.

All of the things Allura had wanted to say suddenly seemed selfish. There was something wounded about the way he stood there, something more than just Shiro’s normal brand of hypervigilance stiffening his posture. He stood too still, everything about his body language making Allura want to hold her breath. He looked like he was waiting for something, some blow, but he was refusing to cower- or flee. 

Allura stood silently while he sorted himself out, looking up at the majestic face of the Black Lion.

Finally, when whatever he was waiting for didn’t come, he sighed and his shoulders slumped.

‘I can't feel her presence anymore,’ he murmured. If Allura hadn't known Shiro as well as she did, she wouldn't have heard the lost hurt in his voice, but it was there in his eyes, a whirl of emotions churning just beneath the surface.

‘I'm sorry,’ she said. She was sorry for a great many things. Sorry that he had lost such a vital connection to that part of him. Sorry that she hadn't known how to help him in the end. Sorry they hadn't found out the truth sooner.

‘Do-Will I... Will I ever be a paladin again?’

Allura couldn't cry in front of him. Not without him asking what her tears were for. Not without her saying too much. There was too much at risk. But, oh, she wanted to.

Instead, she reached out and pulled him into a fierce hug, hiding her traitorous face over his shoulder. ‘You will always be a Paladin of Voltron,’ she promised. 

Slowly, his arms rose from his sides and brushed against her waist, returning her embrace like he wasn’t sure he was supposed to or how to do it. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. They stayed like that for a moment, neither willing to show their faces to the other just yet, neither willing to give up the comfort of being close to another person. 

Finally, it was Allura who pulled away first. ‘When we find our way home, things will probably go back to normal with you, so I can only tell you this once.’ She took a deep breath in and fixed her gaze on his, daring him to look away, to dismiss her words. ‘One day, you may do something you cannot forgive yourself for. You may do something so terrible you believe we are better off without you. I want you to know... we understand. There is a place for you here, always, even when you are not yourself or forced to do things against your will. Remember that your team loves you and you are always, completely and unreservedly forgiven.’

Shiro stared at her for a long while, blinking away his shock. ‘I don't... I don't understand.’

Allura smiled. It was still early on for him. Her team had figured that out rather quickly, but it was still a weight off her shoulders knowing she wouldn't have to live through Operation Kuron again just yet. ‘I hope you never do,’ she replied, stepping away properly. ‘But remember it anyway. For me?’

Shiro nodded, once, like she had just given him an order. ‘I will, Princess.’ 

Allura felt the tension leave her shoulders. It wouldn't fix what had happened in her timeline, but it felt like healing all the same. She glanced up at the Black Lion, who had no doubt watched the entire exchange. ‘I'll leave you two alone now,’ she said, resisting the urge to follow it with a wink - a bad habit she had picked up from working so closely with Lance for nearly twenty years. ‘I'll see you at breakfast.’

She walked away, a murmured ‘thank you’ following her on the way out.

* * *

Allura wrapped her long silvery hair around her head in a bun as she worked. The feel of it under her fingers had always been soothing, a way to relax herself when her mind was stressing too much over something. 

Brows furrowed in consternation, she sifted through the latest communications from the coalition at her station on the bridge, searching for any sign of this timeline’s Prince Lotor. His silence was beginning to make her nervous, no matter what Shiro said about having more important things to worry about. The prince was a wild card, an unknown element. Proof of just how much they had left to do if they were to ever succeed in their mission. 

That was without taking into account the Galra prince aboard her ship at this very moment. Not only did he freely admit to being the same prince that was currently their enemy, he was a Paladin. No matter what the specifics of the future team Voltron’s relationship with Allura’s team turned out to be, his presence raised questions Allura could no longer ignore. 

If Lotor was an ally of Voltron in the future, why was he acting against them now? If Lotor was an enemy right now, how could he not be a threat in the future? What had he done to earn their unwavering trust? What was Allura missing? Surely, Lotor had been working Zarkon's agenda for ten thousand years. What changed?

‘ _ Guys! You might want to get down here,’  _ Pidge’s voice crackled over the intercom. She sounded tired, but there was an undeniable undercurrent of elation behind her words. Allura perked up at the sound.  _ Finally, something working in their favour. _ She abandoned her search, turning and heading down towards the lab. As she got closer, she was joined by Shiro, Keith and Lance, who swapped questioning looks with her as they arrived. 

In the lab, someone was laughing, the sound mixing with the loud voices of Pidge and Hunk as they talked too quickly for Allura to follow. The doors opened to admit them and Allura gaped at the scene.

Pidge ducked out from behind a workbench and threw a wrench in the direction of Lotor’s face. ‘Get your stupid hair out of it!’ she yelled as Lotor bent over something Allura couldn't see. ‘Tie it up or something!’ she muttered something disparaging about theoretical physicists and disappeared again.

‘Pidge!’ Garrett gasped, sitting at one of the desks, typing away on a computer. ‘What did we say about throwing things in the lab?’

‘It's  _ my lab! _ ’ Pidge protested. ‘ _ You're _ just visiting!’ 

‘Uhhhhh technically?’ Hunk spoke up from somewhere Allura couldn't see. ‘It's actually Allura’s lab. You know, since this is her castle ship?’

‘Okay fine!’ Pidge conceded. ‘But that doesn't mean I want long white hair stuck in a delicate piece of equipment! You're supposed to be a scientist!’ She stood up and caught sight of the others standing, and looking rather shell shocked, in the doorway. ‘Guys! You're here! Where are the others?’

‘Did you just.’ Lance swallowed, blinked several times and tried again. ‘Did you just yell at  _ Lotor? _ ’

‘He's endangering my equipment!’ Pidge protested.

Lotor straightened. ‘I was not endangering anything,’ he said mildly enough to still be disconcerting.

‘What's going on here?’ Shiro asked before more small objects could be thrown across the room. 

‘Oh!’ Hunk emerged from behind a shelf carrying a box full of mechanical bits and pieces. ‘Pidge figured out how to close an anomaly. It was genius, really.’

‘Pidge? A genius?’ Akira asked, walking in with her mother in tow. ‘Never would have guessed that one.’ She smiled at Pidge, who came around to stand in front of the assembled group.

Garrett pushed his chair out from behind the desk. He looked around the group and realised there was one missing. ‘Where's Lance? Uh, McClain, I mean.’

Lotor frowned. ‘I'll find him and catch him up later,’ he volunteered. ‘Let him be for now.’

Garrett studied Lotor for a moment and nodded. ‘Okay, well, here's the good news. We found out how to close rifts. Probably not huge ones like the Daibazaal rift. That was caused by the extreme impact of the transreality comet so that's a whole ‘nother thing. But normal ones like the one that took us to the, uh, Altean Empire universe and the one that we came through, we think we can close.’

Allura asked the most important question; ‘How?’

Pidge grinned. ‘With the Blue Lion.’ She jumped into an explanation far too fast and technical for even Allura to follow. Pidge’s face lit up as she talked, hands flailing as she talked about universal frequencies, polarity and magnetism.

‘Basically,’ she concluded. ‘Each reality has a different frequency and the anomaly matches the frequency of the reality it leads to. So if we can find out what that frequency is and reverse it, the anomaly should be able to close for good. As long as we are able to make the right adjustments to Blue, I'll be able to take the readings in Green, calculate the perfect inversion frequency, and tune Blue’s sonic canon to that frequency. A few blasts should theoretically destabilise an anomaly enough for it to close.’

‘We hope,’ Hunk added.

‘It’ll work,’ Lance said. ‘I trust you guys.’

‘Do it,’ Shiro said. ‘Then take a break. You've been working solidly for days.’

‘Wait,’ Keith interrupted, sending Shiro an unreadable look. ‘What kind of adjustments to blue? Anything that could stop it forming Voltron?’

Pidge shook her head. ‘Mostly software. Ideally, we'd make some structural adjustments to the sonic canon itself so it can be tuned more accurately but given the nature of the ability, that's not necessarily possible.’

Keith nodded, satisfied. The group began to disperse, Akira, Lance and Coran already breaking into excitable conversation as they reached the door. Allura watched her older self step away to talk quietly to Garrett and Keith spared Shiro another rather confrontational look before he stalked off. Allura considered going after him, but she had more pressing matters to deal with than Keith and Shiro’s strained friendship.

She approached Lotor, who had moved over to one of the desks. ‘Where is McClain?’ she asked, trying to modulate her voice into something non-aggressive. ‘And why are you the one most qualified to fill him in? Surely Hunk-’

‘If that was any of your business, princess, I would tell you,’ Lotor replied and Allura gaped at him. ‘But I do not think that is why you came to speak with me.’

‘That's true,’ Allura grudgingly admitted. ‘Though you refusing to answer doesn't help if you want me to trust you.’

‘Ah,’ Lotor said. He pressed his lips together in something like disappointment. ‘That's what this is about.’

Allura placed her hands on her hips. ‘If you could just give us some inclination of where our time’s Lotor might be or what he is up to, we could stop it. It would prove your trustworthiness.’

Lotor shook his head. ‘No, it wouldn't. You forget I've been through all of this before. My giving you information won't prove anything to you. I will only prove my worth to you through action, and the lack of opportunity so far hasn't done me any favours. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to find my Black Paladin.’

He turned to leave, but Allura caught him around the arm before he could take a step. ‘Wait! What made you become our ally?’

Lotor’s yellow eyes flickered, the briefest flash of remembered pain there for an instant before it was gone. ‘Desperation.’

‘What made you stay?’

Lotor’s lips quirked slightly, like he was remembering an old joke. ‘Hope.’

Allura let him go. He walked away without another word, heading in the direction of the hangar bays. Allura frowned in thought. ‘What could make a prince of the Empire desperate enough to come to us for help?’ she wondered aloud.

‘Lotor didn't have the sort of life with the empire that we assumed he did,’ Garrett said from behind her, alone again. ‘If you want to find him, you'll have to figure out what he wants. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait until he finds you.’ Allura looked up at him. Garrett’s expression was somewhat pensive. ‘Knowing him like I do now, coming back here and meeting the old him... I felt sorry for him. He's a lot like Keith. There's a lot more going on beneath the surface than you think.’

Allura nodded slowly. ‘Thank you, Hunk.’

Garrett nodded and got back to work, a small rather sad smile on his face. Allura left him alone and headed back up to the bridge. Figuring out what Lotor wanted was one way to keep busy until the future team found their way home.

* * *

Keith didn't know what called him to the lions hangar, rather than the training room or his bedroom after the meeting. It was a tug in the back of his mind, drawing his attention inexorably towards them. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't felt either of the lions he had piloted call to him like this before. Maybe it was the fact that it felt like Red.

Keith approached the hangar slowly. It was the same feeling that had drawn him to Blue and started this whole adventure in the first place, a constant pull. Insistent, but not urgent.

When he got there, knife in his hand just in case, he found Lance - no, McClain - sitting on one paw, leaning against the metal, apparently deep in silent conversation with the Red Lion.

‘What are you doing?’ Keith asked, instinctual protectiveness raising his hackles. Yes, this was Lance, but it was a Lance he didn't know and no matter how many times Shiro repeated otherwise, Keith still thought of Red as  _ his _ . They were bonded, and, if Keith was being honest with himself, which was rare, if anyone other than Lance had tried to fly Red after Keith was forced to take Black, they would have found the sharp end of his knife at their throat. A good thing it had been Lance, then, because that wasn't a very leaderly way of thinking.

‘What are you doing?’ McClain parroted back at him, curious, but not defensive. 

Keith frowned. ‘Why are you talking to my- to Lance’s lion?’

McClain stood, sent a curious look up at Red’s glowing golden eyes, then back to Keith. ‘She was curious about me,’ he replied. ‘I think she's going to check out my Allura next.’ He raised one eyebrow in surprise at something Red indicated, then carefully schooled his face into a more neutral expression. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

Keith blanked briefly before he remembered his conversation with Lance yesterday. ‘Oh, yeah. I... Lance suggested I uh... talk to you about a problem. That I've been having.’ He cast a guilty look at Red. ‘With the Black Lion.’

McClain’s entire face widened in realisation. ‘Ohhhh... okay that makes sense. Yeah, sure. What do you need?’

Keith hesitated. This was so much easier with his Lance, somehow. Recently, they seemed to be on the same page a lot more often. With McClain, Keith felt out of the loop. Considering the circumstances, that wasn't surprising, but it left him feeling uneasy. ‘I can’t- I need to... connect with her. More than I have been, I mean.’ 

And Keith laid out the whole story, how overwhelmed he felt when they formed Voltron, how he felt he was letting the team down because he couldn't hold everything in his head, how Lance seemed to think McClain could help.

McClain thought for a moment, then nodded, expression serious. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and lead them down the vast hallways towards the Black Lion’s hangar. Two versions of Black stared down at them when they entered. Somehow, Keith could tell them apart, and focused his attention on the one to his right. McClain followed his lead. 

‘Shiro could do so much more with her than I can,’ he murmured, half to McClain, half to himself.

‘Shiro spent a lot of time bonding with her,’ McClain replied, equally softly. ‘It took a long time for them to fully connect. You need to spend some quality time together to bond properly. You haven't been doing that much have you?’ McClain’s voice wasn't judgemental, just infuriatingly  _ knowing _ . 

‘I dont...’ It was useless to deny it, and Keith was tired of not being listened to about this. If McClain was offering, the least he could do was be honest. ‘No. I haven’t.’

McClain nodded. ‘You have a problem Shiro and I didn't,’ he said, and Keith bristled reflexively.

‘Hey, I didn't ask-’

‘Sorry,’ McClain raised his hands in the universal gesture of harmlessness. ‘What I meant, was that Shiro and I both accepted the Black Lion very early on. It wasn't as difficult for us as it was for you. She can't help you if you don't let her in.’

‘But... how?’ It had been so easy with Red. They were kindred spirits. Black was... different, less like fire, more like starlight. Quieter, further away. Black didn't rage like Red did. Like Keith did.

‘Find some common ground,’ McClain suggested. ‘It might be easier than you think. You just have to allow yourself to look close enough.’

Black leaned down and opened her mouth for them. Keith stepped onto the ramp and turned back, wordlessly inviting McClain in with them. He didn't know how to do this alone. 

The door to the cockpit slid open with a faint hiss and Keith settled into the pilot’s seat. Hesitantly, he reached out with his mind, just brushing against the infinite expanse of Black’s consciousness. ‘Tell me what to do.’

McClain didn't answer, but the Black Lion did. She prodded at his mind, bringing to his attention the walls he had instinctively erected around himself. Slowly, he let them down. It was hard, the effort it took almost embarrassing, like he was fighting himself, but Keith had never been one to give up. He needed to do this. So he did.

He felt the moment they made contact, starlight burst behind his closed eyelids, impossibly bright, cold and hot at the same time, overwhelming him, surrounding him. When the light faded, Keith could see the cockpit, but not from his point of view. It was like he was looking over his own shoulder, down at a blue Voltron helmet, a purple Galra head, a white tuft of hair, a black mess of bangs, all overlaid on top of each other. In the space of a moment, he watched Black show Shiro Daibazaal, show Lance Earth, show Zarkon Voltron. Shiro had needed to understand her and her history with Zarkon. Zarkon had needed to see Voltron’s potential, the possibility these mechanical creatures possessed, and how they should be used. Lance had needed hope, a reason to keep fighting.

(And what could have happened in between now and then to make Lance need that? How deep into despair must he have fallen to get to that point by the time he sat in this chair and felt the lion respond to him?)

What did Keith need?

Another image formed behind Keith’s eyes. Lance and Keith in the training room, Shiro, before he disappeared the second time around, pulling Keith into a hug. Hunk wrapping his arms around Keith and Lance after the first time they'd formed Voltron in training. Allura sitting in a transport pod with him, sharing in his silence. Pidge wrapping her tiny arms around his waist as he stared at her in surprise. The whole group of them, chained together by the wrists, laughing and covered in green food goo.

Keith's team.

He heard the deep rumble of a lion’s growl in the back of his mind and he thought he understood. He was not alone.

‘But...’ he whispered aloud. ‘I can't lead the team like Shiro.’

He felt a hand on his shoulder and when McClain spoke, it was almost as if he could feel the words reverberating inside his head as well as in his ears, as if McClain and the Black Lion were speaking to him as one.

‘You don't have to lead like Shiro. You just have to lead like you.’

And in a flash, Keith thought he understood the point they were trying to make. Maybe Shiro could lead from the top, maybe he didn't need a right hand man or Hunk’s caution or Pidge’s quick thinking to lead the team, but Keith couldn't lead like that. Keith needed his team as much as they needed him. He couldn't be the loner anymore. He couldn't stand above, apart from his team anymore. That part of him that had been his shield against the world, that had protected him for so long was now the very thing that was holding him back. If he was going to do this, accept this role he had been forced into, if he was going to help this war and his team in the best way possible, he was going to have to sacrifice that part of himself. 

The thought made him recoil in pure animal instinct. He felt that mental shield snap back into place faster than he could blink, clinging to him, digging its claws in. Black went suddenly silent, he couldn't feel her through the faint panic building in his chest. It folded in on itself, compounded until he felt like he was drowning in it, until he could barely breathe. Someone was calling his name, a deep male voice full of concern and something warm rested on his shoulders.

At the touch, Keith snapped his eyes open. McClain was kneeling in front of him, blue eyes full of concern, but his presence was calm, and Keith found he could breathe again.

‘You're okay,’ McClain murmured, and for a moment, he reminded Keith of his dad when he was little, holding him after a nightmare. ‘You're okay, you're not alone.’

And that was it, wasn't it? Keith was not alone. He had Lance and Hunk and Pidge and Shiro and Allura and Coran. They needed him. He might not be able to do this for himself, but he could do it for them. He would die for any one of them, he knew it in his bones. If he could do that without hesitation, then letting this part of himself go should be a piece of cake. 

‘I'm okay,’ he said and took a deep, steadying breath. McClain’s face broke into a proud smile. ‘I can do this.’

Black’s presence reentered him like a tidal wave, crashing through him, taking him over, inhabiting him and letting him inhabit her. He couldn't tell where he ended and the lion began. He could see through her eyes, think her thoughts, feel what she felt. And in that fusion of being, something changed in them both.

Keith felt some of the fire burning inside him stutter out. Something of Black’s starlight soul hardened, lanced through their shared vision and together they were  _ lightning _ . Bright as starlight, hot as flame, faster and deadlier and more connected than ever before. They flashed and blazed and burned together and for the first time, Keith felt himself relax in her seat. Like this, he could share his position with her, like this, she could process every bit of information that Keith struggled to keep up with, like this, she could work  _ with _ him, not  _ for _ him and suddenly the idea of going out there and forming Voltron with himself at the head wasn't so heart-stoppingly terrifying.

Black purred deep within his mind. It sounded like thunder rolling in, an oncoming storm that filled the air with anticipation and made the hairs on his arms stand on end, electrified. His whole body, his very soul felt like a livewire, humming with power and so, so alive. He may not get to live for much longer, he may not be the best Black Paladin Voltron has ever seen, but he could do this for his team, he could make this sacrifice, be their leader for them.

‘Thank you,’ he said aloud, to the lion and to McClain.

Black rumbled again.

McClain smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea when the next chapter will be up but hopefully it won't be such a big gap this time since I'm on exam leave and then holiday for the next month so that means lots of time to write!
> 
> PS when I started writing this, I did absolutely the minimal of planning and that's biting me in the ass now. The final chapter count has been increased to 10 but that's honestly a guesstimate because I suck at planning right now apparently so who knows how long it will end up being???? We're not too far from the finish line now though folks so it won't be too much longer.
> 
> Stars, I need sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooooooo season 6 happened. I'm still processing a bit tbh. Since this has been planned out for a long time before season 6 came out, obviously, it is not canon compliant. This chapter includes discussion of Operation Kuron, which went differently in the future!Voltron's universe. Also, Lotor is a genuine ally to Voltron in this fic so obviously what happened at the end of season 6 didn't happen in this universe (which also could explain the differences in the Operation Kuron storyline). Also, real Shiro isn't dead.
> 
> Trigger warning for this chapter: mention of suicide in the last scene. Read with care.

Keith didn't turn up for dinner that night. McClain said the Black Paladin had some things to sort out and, at first, Lance had smiled into his food goo despite himself. Maybe Keith had actually taken his advice for once. The idea sent a little thrill down his spine, appealing to the part of him that desperately craved a concrete role on the team. If he could help Keith get around this problem, then maybe this was the role he was meant to fill. Lance could be okay with that. He had long since accepted his time as a paladin was not going to be a glorious adventure. War was hard, and if this was his part to play, he was going to be the best damn right hand man a Black Paladin could ask for.

When everyone had finished their meal and Shiro started collecting plates, Lance began to worry. Keith still hadn't shown up and he was still recovering from his mission on Keikrops. If he wasn't eating... well, Lance should probably make sure he was okay and looking after himself. That's what a good right hand would do.

When he reached the Black Lion's hangar, however, there was only one pair of yellow eyes there to greet him. Keith must have taken Black out for a joyride, which meant Lance couldn't do anything until he got back. Feeling suddenly bereft with his plan thwarted, Lance returned to his room to wait.

He ended up spending the next few hours messing around on his pad, playing the few games Pidge had managed to upload onto the castle network. Just as he was about to give up and call it a night, someone knocked on his bedroom door.

‘Keith?’ Lance asked the room as he scrambled to answer. ‘Where have you-’

To his surprise, Garrett waved at him when the door swished open.

Of course it wasn't Keith. Keith never came to visit Lance- and why would he? It was just wishful thinking on Lance's part, but he tried not to be too disappointed. ‘Hey, man what's up?’ he asked brightly, trying to cover for his momentary lapse before Garrett noticed anything.

Garrett smiled softly. ‘I was hoping you could give me a hand,’ he said.

Well, if Lance couldn't help Keith, at least he could be useful to someone. ‘Sure, what do you need?’

Garrett beckoned Lance with a wave of his hand and lead him towards the elevator. ‘Usually Lotor or McClain would help but they're busy right now and you're just as good,’ he said as the elevator deposited them on the floor where the Lab was situated.

‘Help with what?’ Lance asked, as Garrett opened the lab door and pressed a finger to his lips. Inside, the room was dark, lit only by the glow of several holographic screens and the shifting screensaver of Pidge’s laptop. Pidge herself was slumped in her chair, fast asleep. Hunk was in an equally unconscious state, drooling slightly onto his desk with his head pillowed on his arms.

‘They've been working so hard,’ Garrett whispered and Lance nodded.

He could feel his expression softening into fondness as he took in the scene. ‘Yeah they have,’ he agreed.

Garrett’s expression no doubt mirrored Lance's own. ‘I'll take me, you take Pidge, yeah?’ he suggested and Lance agreed, moving to scoop the smallest paladin up into his arms. Pidge sighed in her sleep but otherwise didn't even stir. The poor kid was probably exhausted.

‘They- uhhh... she thinks of you like a brother, you know,’ Garrett murmured. ‘Even after she finds Matt. You're the one she comes to for advice when she needs it.’

Lance blinked down at the softly snoring Green Paladin. ‘She does? Why not Shiro? Or you? You guys are practically inseparable.’

Garrett shrugged, hefting Hunk into his own arms. ‘She comes to me for different things. I'm- I was the person that she could stand to be around when interacting with everyone else was too much. We understood one another.’ Lance's stomach clenched painfully at Garrett’s use of past-tense. ‘But you're part of her support system too. When things went bad with Kur- I mean... Over time, you kinda become that for all of us, too. Even Shiro, when...’ Garrett trailed off and Lance got the distinct feeling he wasn't being told the whole truth, that something big awaited in the future that Garrett wanted to hide from him. If it was somehow worse than Pidge or Keith _dying_... Lance decided he really didn't want to know. ‘You're the one that holds us together through everything,’ Garrett continued and Lance focused on the words instead of the part of his mind that was already spinning with worst case scenarios. ‘You shouldn't have to, but you do.’

It was late. Lance didn't understand why Garrett was saying all of these things now. _What did he know?_ ‘Maybe McClain is-’

‘No, Lance,’ Garrett shook his head and stepped out of the elevator. ‘Not some day in the future. Not once you're Black Paladin McClain, who is stillyou, by the way. You now. You here. Today. From the beginning.’

Lance swallowed thickly. Hearing those words in Hunk’s voice made something swell inside him, putting pressure on his lungs, behind his eyes. ‘Why are you saying this now?’

Garrett shrugged, lifting Hunk up and down with the motion. ‘Because I know you, I know how your mind works. Because I know that you haven't been told this yet. Because I see you trying so hard to keep everyone else together that you don't always keep any of that compassion and love for yourself. Because I know there's something really bothering you.’

‘Keith...’ Lance began, voice hoarse. ‘I don't... I don't know what to do.’

‘Because you love him?’

They had stopped outside Hunk’s door and Lance flashed back to the other night when Keith was still in a cryopod and Lance was still in denial.

Garrett disappeared inside and reappeared moments later, arms empty of his younger self, presumably safely sleeping in his own bed. Lance shifted Pidge in his arms and she nuzzled her face in his neck, her breath soft against his ear.

‘Your Keith died,’ Lance said. Garrett nodded and followed Lance in the direction of Pidge’s room. ‘So... does that mean my Keith will too? Will Pidge...?’ he trailed off and instinctively gripped Pidge a little tighter. She made a tiny noise, but was still dead to the world.

‘There's no way to know.’ Garrett opened her door for him and they stepped gingerly inside together.

Lance carefully picked his way across her cluttered floor to the bed and gently laid her down, pulling a blanket up to her shoulders. She hummed and burrowed into it. Lance took a moment to smile fondly down at her before turning away. His heart ached in his chest. Garrett was right. She was like a sister to him too and that word meant everything to Lance who missed his own siblings so much that sometimes he couldn't breathe. In the dim light of the castle’s night cycle, the homesickness was strongest. Fatigue made his thoughts harder to control, the shadows of the castle’s corridors so unlike the ones back home it was striking and there was Pidge, asleep in her room with Garrett standing beside him, a living reminder that seeing his family again, seeing Pidge, or Keithagain wasn't a guarantee.

‘What if you're right?’ Lance whispered. ‘What if what happened to your Keith happens to mine?’ _My Keith._ It felt dangerous to say somehow. It wasn't a declaration or a claim, but felt heavy on his tongue, like a confession. Different, even, to the way it had felt last time he had used the phrase, that first day when talking to McClain. The dark around them gave the words their own gravity.

‘Lance...’ Garrett began. He rested a large warm hand on Lance's shoulder, squeezing gently until Lance looked up to meet his eyes. ‘What if we're wrong?’

For the first time since Lance had admitted his feelings to himself, he considered the implications of Garrett’s words. There was no way to know, of course, that his feelings were requited, but the idea reared its head for a moment, filling Lance's head with _possibilities._

Fighting sentries back to back, working and moving seamlessly together in battle, grins on their faces as they maintained their usual banter but this time with pet names and hints of flirtatiousness thrown in the mix. Celebrating victories with a kiss that lingers just _a little_ too long to be entirely appropriate. Discussing mission plans with Keith's head cradled in Lance’s lap, those indigo eyes focused solely on him. The two of them curled up together on Lance’s bunk, watching a movie on his tablet as Lance worked out the kinks in Keith’s muscles after he spent too long training, again.

A thousand more scenarios that flashed through Lance's mind, some innocent, some decidedly less so, all brought to the surface by the question, _what if?_

He blinked away the thoughts and looked up at Garrett’s tired, battle-lined face. The man had seen and lost so much, Lance's heart broke for him.

‘Is the possibility of losing him so painful that you're not willing to try at all?’

_Yes_ , Lance wanted to say. _It already hurts too much._ But then another face flashes in his mind's eye, one just as war-wearied and broken down as Garrett’s.

_I'm sorry_ , McClain had said. _I wasn't there._

Lance remembered the haunted, desolate look on his face as he said it and wondered if McClain would disagree.

The thought of losing Keith terrified Lance. The anticipatory grief ate away at him if he thought about it, but Keith was still part of the team. He wasn't dead yet. Maybe... maybe Lance could make sure he never left. Maybe Lance could save him.

‘You think that he might be okay?’ Lance asked, voice small.

Garrett smiled. ‘My friend, I've been to so many different realities, and there's one thing I've learned. The smallest things can change the course of history. There has got to be one version of it where we all live happily ever after. The best we can do is try to make sure it's the one we live in. Nothing is set in stone.’

Lance found himself nodding along, the beginnings of a plan coalescing in the back of his mind.

Pidge and Keith would both be okay. He would make sure of it, if it was the last thing he did.

* * *

When Keith returned to the castle, he could still feel Black’s electric presence buzzing through him. Most of the castle was asleep by now, and he had made it to the kitchen to grab some dinner without meeting another soul. Keith wandered the halls for a while as he ate, bowl in one hand, spoon in the other, trying to work of some of the excess energy his evening bonding with Black had left him with.

By the time he returned to his room, he was feeling calmer, relishing the stillness he always felt between the adrenaline high and the crash. He flopped down onto his bed with a huff, fully intending to close his eyes and sleep until he needed to wake the rest of his team for training in the morning. For once, the idea didn't seem so far fetched.

The knock on his door jolted him out of his thoughts. Frowning, he stood up as the person on the other side knocked again, quietly enough that he suspected they didn't want to be overheard.

‘Excuse me, Keith, sir?’

He opened the door and raised one unimpressed eyebrow at the girl on the other side. _Shiro’s daughter_. “‘Sir?’” he asked in a flat voice. He had never been called _sir_ in his life. It felt weird.

Akira flushed slightly. ‘Sorry, I just... you're the Black Paladin but I don't know you very well so I... panicked.’

‘Wow, I cannot believe you and Allura are related,’ Keith muttered. Louder, he said, ‘You can just call me Keith,’ trying and failing to act less awkward than he felt. Akira nodded though she didn't relax.

‘Okay... Keith,’ she said and opened her mouth to say more but she hesitated. Keith leaned against the doorframe and waited her out. Finally, she said, ‘Can I come in? I need to tell you something really important.’

Keith stepped aside and allowed her in without a word.

‘What is this about, Akira?’ Keith asked, once she was inside. She nervously looked around the room, taking in what she could in the dim light of the night cycle. Again, Keith could sense she was hesitating. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I need you to promise two things for me. Promise you won't freak out when I tell you this and once you know, promise me you won't tell mom.’

Keith scoffed. ‘What, are you pregnant or something?’

Akira blanched. ‘No! Nothing like that, I just promised her I wouldn't tell anyone from this timeline but- I can't hide it anymore. I can't...’ she looked like she was about to cry, blue eyes glistening, but hard, determined. ‘It's about da-’ she cleared her throat. ‘You need t-’ A deep breath. ‘Voltron is compromised.’

Keith’s heart stuttered in shock. ‘ _What?’_

Akira’s voice was dull, matter of fact, but it trembled slightly. ‘Back before the- before the, hmmm, the... fall of Zarkon, the Empire had this top secret project. Called Operation Kuron.’

Keith snapped to attention. ‘What does that mean?’ he asked, businesslike.

‘Haggar wanted to create sleeper agents, people who could work against the rebels- against Voltronfrom the inside.’

The implications were staggering. Keith clenched his fists at his side to stop them from shaking with fury. Still... Keith couldn't imagine any of the paladins betraying the cause. Hunk was too nervous to make a good double-agent. He couldn't lie to save his own life. Lance was too... too... _good_ to work with an organisation that threatened to kill and enslave billions of people. No matter what he said, he cared about people too much. Pidge might turn against them if she had enough of an incentive maybe. If Zarkon had offered her father or her brother in exchange for information, would Pidge refuse? Keith wanted to say no. Pidge was one of them. She wouldn't just betray them like that... would she?

‘Who is the mole?’ he asked. His voice was quiet, deadly, but he was doing his damnedest to keep calm. ‘And why did you come to me and not Allura or Shiro?’

‘They aren’t the Black Paladin.’ Akira winced and made a helpless flapping motion with her arms that reminded Keith forcefully of Lance. ‘My mom said that I wasn't allowed to tell you because- because the mole... it _is_ Shiro.’

‘What? No, that’s impossible!’ the words were out of his mouth before he could think, before he could regret them. Shiro was Keith's _family_ , the closest thing Keith had to blood and Keith _knew_ him. Shiro would never-

‘You don't understand,’ Akira snapped. She sounded desperate, like she was begging for something. ‘The Shiro on this ship right now isn't my dad! He's- he’s a clone and he doesn't even know it-’ Akira’s shoulders shook. She sobbed. ‘My dad, the real Takashi, was stuck in the void for over a year while a clone took his place. He came back... different. Scatterbrained. Fractured. He'd get so scared sometimes. Paranoid. Like... we couldn't do certain things because he'd seen a ver-version of reality where we did that and got hurt or died and he'd spent that year floating between realities, watching us live and die a thousand times in a thousand different ways and it hurt him so much, Keith. I was hoping that if we found him earlier... maybe we could stop it from hurting him so much. Maybe we could save him from having to go through that.’

_Oh, Shiro..._ Keith’s nails dug into his ungloved hands, pressing against the new scar the healing pod hadn't been able to fully erase. If Shiro- if Shiro’s _clone_ was a security threat, it was Keith’s job to deal with it.

‘It's up to you what you do with this information,’ Akira said quietly. She seemed to have calmed down, her voice was steady and sure. ‘But as far as we have been able to figure out about Operation Kuron, Haggar hasn't gotten any information at this point so you don't have to act right now.’

‘I can't just let a Galra spy wander freely around the castle, Akira.’

‘I know, I know,’ replied quickly. ‘But you have time. You know before it's a problem. You can afford to wait-’

‘Are you insane?’ Keith demanded. ‘You can't expect me to just- let someone send secrets to the enemy! It would put this entire war in jeopardy. I have to-’ He cut himself off as a new thought occurred to him. ‘Why didn't you tell us as soon as we met? You didn't have much problem telling us other things about the future!’

Akira hesitated. ‘When Pidge died she was alone,’ she said. ‘We sent her on an undercover infiltration mission to an enemy lab. She was captured and executed. When Kuron died, everyone was there. It was before you- I mean, you and your paladins were all there, as well as maybe twenty or thirty coalition leaders and Emp- er, Prince Lotor. Pidge told me about it, once. She said that Kuron was terrified and fighting for control the entire time, but he couldn't stop himself. He killed ten coalition leaders and injured two more. When he was lucid enough to speak, he begged to be put down. It was his worst nightmare, and even after you guys managed to restrain him, he was still coming in and out of himself, but you refused to kill him. Even though he still had blood on his hands.’ Akira clenched her fists in front of her, staring at her hands. ‘He killed himself. You guys wouldn't do it so he did it himself. It was-’ she let out a shuddering breath. ‘I'm pretty sure Lance still has nightmares about that day.’

Keith was stunned into silence, the whole gruesome story playing itself out in his head. Shiro losing control of his body. Shiro hurting people he loved. Shiro, begging for-

‘You were worried that if you told us, he would do something like that again,’ Keith said. Akira nodded. He would have been too. Even if he didn't try to kill anyone, Keith couldn't imagine Shiro would be able to live with himself if he knew he was going to be used by the Galra to hurt people- again.

‘Kuron wasn't my dad and until now, I had never even met him,’ Akira said. ‘But even though he was made by the Galra, he was still built off of Shiro and he still loved you all so much. Hurting you... it killed him.’

Keith was silent for a moment, mind working. He itched to act on this new information, to march down there and neutralise the threat that wore his best friend’s face. The very thought lit an indignant fire under his skin, a burning rage, first at Kuron for masquerading as Shiro, for taking his place, then at himself for letting him. It was Haggar, though, he reminded himself forcefully. Haggar who was responsible for this assault on their team.

He had to talk to Lance.

‘What do I need to do differently so that doesn't happen?’

Akira shook her head. ‘I don't... I don't know. It was before my time, but you're the Black Paladin right now. Voltron - we're a team. You can trust your team. Lance... he'll know what to do.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ Keith asked.

Akira shrugged. ‘Lance always knows what to do.’ She stated it like fact, like it was a fundamental law of the universe. Keith envied the future Lance this unwavering faith. He remembered his conversation with Lance in the training room, the way Lance just took Keith’s issues in stride and immediately began making suggestions. Maybe that faith wasn't as misplaced as first appearances would indicate.

‘There's one thing you should know though,’ Akira said. ‘If you leave, Kuron will be able to take your place. If she doesn't have a choice, the Black Lion _will_ take him.’

‘What about Lance?’ Keith asked.

Akira shook her head. ‘He’s not ready,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’

‘How do you know?’ Keith pressed, surely Lance wouldn’t be too terrible compared to an _enemy spy_.

‘He told me once...’ she said. ‘The Black Lion needs someone she can relate to. Someone who’s... experienced similar things... Someone who understands. She was betrayed and abandoned by Zarkon, she waited for so long for another paladin and it... changes a person. Even her. Lance... isn’t quite there yet.’

_Yet._ The word made Keith feel vaguely sick. The idea that the team, that _Lance_ had a lot more pain to go through before this was all over, made him angry. What Akira said made sense though. The Black Lion, betrayed and abandoned, waiting... Keith could understand why, perhaps, the Black Lion had chosen him over the others if that was the case.

‘Thanks for telling me,’ Keith said, the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind starting with “ _move_.” ‘Anything else?’

Akira held out her hand, something that looked like a thumb drive resting in her palm. ‘I downloaded everything I could find on Data’s systems about what happened with Kuron and dad onto here. It's not much, but... hopefully it will be enough for you to figure out how to bring him home.’

Keith took the thumb drive, clutched it tightly in his fist. ‘Thank you,’ he said, meeting her eyes for once, astonished at the pure hope and relief swimming in them.

‘Just bring him home,’ Akira replied and Keith took that as his cue to act. She stopped him on the way out for a moment though, a hand on his arm. ‘Keith? I’m a soldier, just like you. I know this is war, but... If you can... please don’t hurt Kuron? What happened to him, even though he wasn’t Shiro, it broke their hearts.’

Keith clenched his jaw. He couldn’t make promises like that. Better to be heartbroken than dead. ‘I- I’ll try,’ he said. Akira released him and he was out of the door before she could stall him any further.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An action scene??? in this fic???? its more likely than you think.
> 
> In all seriousness, sorry for the lateness of the chapters recently. We're nearing the end point soon so hopefully there wont be too long to wait for the next chapter. I'm starting Uni again next week though, so I won't make any promises just in case.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Lance returned to his room but didn’t sleep. Garrett’s words kept ringing through his head, the same gentle, understanding voice that had asked him about his feelings in the first place. There had to be something Lance could do to be sure everyone survived this war.

 _Nothing is set in stone_.

The first step was convincing Keith to stay.

It was late, too late to talk to Keith now, if he was even back yet - Lance wouldn’t put it past Keith to stay out all night if he could. His feet tapped against his bedroom floor in a staccato beat, anxious to find the Black Paladin all the same.

Did Keith know how he died in the other timeline? Had McClain told him, too? Was Keith even thinking about leaving? Was there something that had made him want to leave in the other timeline that hadn’t happened yet? The questions tangled together in his mind until he could barely think at all and in the centre of the maelstrom was Keith.

This was getting out of hand.

Lance sighed and flopped backwards onto his bed. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. _Calm down, man,_ he thought to himself. _There’s still time_. Time to fix this, time to come up with a plan that could work. Time to figure out what he wanted to do about this damn crush.

Lance rooted around for the headphones he’d “borrowed” from Pidge months ago and felt the tension slowly leave his shoulders as he focused on the rhythm of the music. His fingers danced along to the beat, tapping away the anxious energy he felt like he’d been carrying for days. After a few minutes the music switched to a slower song and Lance felt himself relax, breathing in time until he felt just about able to finally fall asleep.

A faint series of thuds sounded somewhere, jarringly out of time. Something touched his face and Lance jumped about a foot in the air, narrowly missing hitting his head on the low ceiling over his bunk when the headphones were ripped unceremoniously off his head. The darkness in his room was almost complete, but he was able to make out a familiar shape in the gloom before he lashed out on instinct.

‘Woah, Keith! What the hell man?’

‘You weren’t answering your door,’ Keith grumbled.

Lance gaped. ‘Yeah, because it’s like three in the morning. Dude, what are you doing here?’

‘We need to talk.’

Lance stumbled to his feet and made it to the section of wall where the control for the lights was hidden. He turned up the brightness- not enough to blind them, but enough he could actually see Keith without squinting hard enough to give himself a headache. Keith paced the few feet from Lance’s bunk to the wall, fists clenched at his sides.

‘What’s wrong? Did something happen-?’

Keith’s eyes flicked up to Lance’s for a moment, settling somewhere just above Lance’s shoulder. ‘I- Akira told me- Shiro-’

Lance’s stomach dropped. The way Keith was acting... Akira had assured them that future Shiro was alive, but if she had changed her story... Lance couldn’t take the possibility of _another_ lost team member. Pidge and Keith were already two too many. He took a cautious step forward, hands up in a non-threatening gesture. When he spoke, his voice was deliberately calm. ‘Hey, slow down. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out okay? What did she say?’

_Please don’t say he’s dead too._

Keith swallowed and Lance noticed how pale he’d gotten.

_Please say it’s something else._

‘Shiro, he-’

Keith’s words were drowned out by the castle’s alarms, shattering the relative quiet. A male voice echoed over the loudspeakers, one Lance had never heard before.

‘ _Red alert. Transreality activity detected. Everyone to battle stations.’_

Keith finally met Lance’s gaze for a second, the raw expression from a moment before iced over with his usual battle-mask. They took off in tandem, bursting from the room and down the corridor towards the bridge.

‘Lance, wait!’ Keith snapped as he ran, but neither stopped. ‘I can’t explain right now, but please- you have to- have to promise me that you’ll keep an eye on Shiro for me. I can’t-’

Lance didn’t know what was going on, but if Keith was worried, that was reason enough to do what he said. ‘I got your back, buddy, don’t worry.’

They nearly collided with Pidge after only a few meters. Her face was white as a sheet, eyes glazed with tears. ‘Matt!’ she shouted, sprinting down the corridor faster than Lance had ever seen her run. ‘Matt!’

She reached the bridge first, almost slamming into the doors as they opened in her haste to get inside. ‘Matt is that you?’

The bridge flashed red in time with the alarm but it was otherwise empty. ‘What’s going on?’ Keith asked.

Three pairs of footsteps echoed behind them and Lotor, McClain and Garrett sprinted into the room.

‘Hunk, find out where on our side that alert is coming from. I need visuals now! Lotor, see if you can find which reality they’re coming from. If it's the Commonwealth I want to know as soon as possible.’ McClain turned back to where Lance, Pidge and Keith were standing dumbfounded. ‘You three, gather your team and suit up. If this is who we think it is, we’re gonna need as many lions as we can. We could use you. Go!’ he instructed after no one moved.

‘Lance, I’ve got the point of entry!’ Garrett called from his monitor in the Yellow Lion’s chair as Lance turned to run back to his room.

‘What’s happening?’ That was Shiro. He and the rest had arrived looking like he had scrambled out of bed in a rush. Both Alluras and Akira were right behind him. Hunk was just turning the corner.

‘Ask the other me!’ Lance called over his shoulder as he rushed past. ‘He says to suit up!’

Older Allura dashed into the bridge, calling, ‘Where?’ After a moment, the alarms stopped blaring, only to be replaced by her voice calling, ‘ _Everyone to their lions! We’ve got Commonwealth battlecruisers inbound!’_

‘Commonwealth?’ Keith gasped from somewhere behind Lance. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘It's who the future team are fighting to free realities from!’ Pidge explained without stopping, disappearing into her own room to change without another word.

Lance changed as quickly as he could, opening a comms channel as soon as he had his helmet on. ‘Someone want to explain what’s happening right now?’

‘ _Four Commonwealth cruisers just breached an anomaly into this reality._ ’ Lotor replied, voice slightly tinny over the comms. ‘ _Consular-class with a three-ship escort. Two generals and a praetor.’_

‘ _Consular-class?’_ Akira’s voice crackled in Lance’s ear. ‘ _That’s a pre-invasion force!’_

‘ _Pidge, is your reality key functional in Blue yet?’_ Keith demanded. ‘ _If they came through a rift, we have to close it before more come through_.’

‘ _We haven’t been able to test it yet, but if we’ve done it right, it should work,’_ Garrett replied.

‘ _Keep it together, guys,’_ McClain ordered. ‘ _We’ve faced this formation before, and we have two Voltrons to work with. Keith, you gonna follow my lead?’_

‘ _You’re the expert here,’_ Keith replied after a split-second of silence. Lance smiled softly to himself at the undeniable note of respect in his voice.

Lance reached the Red Lion’s hangar and turned right, towards _his_ Red. The older version of Allura wasn’t far behind, splitting off in the opposite direction to greet her own lion. ‘Let’s send these guys back to where they came from!’

Allura’s voice echoed through Red’s cockpit. ‘ _Arriving in a few ticks!’_ A screen popped up, showing the younger version at the teleduv’s controls, already in full paladin armour. ‘ _Get ready!’_

Shiro sat in the Black Paladin’s chair on the bridge in the background, ready to utilize the castle defences. ‘Ready at your command, Princess.’

Coran was in place in front of Allura, waiting to take over the castle’s controls once they reached the end of the wormhole. She nodded once at him and dashed out of the frame.

McClain’s face appeared in a window next to the scene. ‘ _This will be a great opportunity to deal a blow to to the Commonwealth so focus your fire on the Consular cruiser. If we’re lucky, we’ll make a big difference in the war today.’_

The castle shuddered and they re-entered realspace, Lance gripped the controls and glanced sideways at the identical Red Lion already poised for action.

‘ _Are you ready for this, Lance?’_ his fellow Red Paladin asked.

Lance grinned. ‘Princess, I was _born_ ready.’ He shoved both arms forward, sending his lion leaping into the void, Allura only moments behind.

The cruisers didn’t look anything like Galra ships. The thrusters glowed quintessence blue, their massive bodies sleek, streamlined silver. The one in the lead was twice as massive as the nearest in size, with a visible bridge providing a one-eighty view of it’s surroundings through reinforced glass. A blue emblem Lance didn’t recognise was branded on one side of the hull of each ship, a stylised lion’s head with something that could have been wings protruding from behind it, accompanied by Altean lettering he couldn’t read.

‘Woah,’ he breathed, taking in the sight. The two smallest ships, roughly the same size and shape as the deep space exploration vessel they had found trapped between realities weeks ago, surged forward and opened fire as the ten lions of Voltron emerged to intercept.

‘ _Keith’s team, focus on destroying the two smaller cruisers and see if you can disable the middle-sized one’s cannon.’_ McClain’s voice crackled over the comms. _‘We have the big one.’_

‘ _Rodger that,’_ Keith replied. ‘ _Team, form up on me!’_ Lance moved to Keith’s right side and gunned for the nearest of the two smaller cruisers.

‘ _My team, Form Voltron!’_ McClain ordered in his ear and a chill went up Lance’s spine.

‘Woah, that was weird,’ Lance said as Voltron assembled several hundred meters to his right. ‘Did anyone else find that weird?’

‘ _Super weird,’_ Hunk agreed.

‘ _Guys, focus!’_ Keith snapped. _‘Pidge keep an eye out for any enemy reinforcements or Galra ships incoming. Send a feed of your scanners direct to my lion. We can’t assume we’re the only ones who have noticed these guys’ arrival. Hunk, you and Allura take out the canon of the cruiser and watch out for incoming fire. Lance, you and Pidge take out the inside target. I’ve got the outside. Go!’_

‘Copy that, team leader,’ Lance grinned and dived for the ship Keith had indicated, firing on it with his front laser as he descended on it from above. The ship fired back and Lance had to throw himself out of the way of the incoming blast. ‘Pidge, on your left!’

The middle ship had opened what looked like bay doors and small fighter ships were swarming out of the hold, firing shots among the lions, forcing them to scatter. The other Voltron appeared behind them with Hunk’s cannon on their shoulder. It fired at the opening, halting the flow of fighters, and Lance swore they nodded at him and Pidge before flying off again, back towards the consular ship.

‘ _Definitely super weird,’_ Hunk announced, then grunted as out of the corner of Lance’s eye he saw Yellow body slam into the middle ship’s canon, knocking it out of the way just as it glowed to life to fire another shot. The beam of light went wide, narrowly missing the castleship which swooped in behind Lance to let loose a volley of shots at the fighter swarm.

‘ _Lance, I have a shot at the ship’s weak point but I have fighters on my tail!’_ Pidge complained.

‘On it!’ Lance replied and spun in midair, leaping into a dogfight with the two fighters closing in on the Green Lion. He fired off several rounds at them, hitting one hard enough for it to explode. He clipped the wing of the second, sending it spinning sideways into the ship, just as huge vines exploded outwards from the hull, wrapping around it and crushing the pressurised container like a soda can. Lance whooped and spun to face the remaining smaller ship, which Keith was flitting around like an annoying insect in Black. ‘Go help Hunk and Allura!’ Lance suggested to Pidge. ‘I’ve got Keith!’

He literally crashed into two fighters as he shot through space to where Keith had his jawblade out, slicing along the side, leaving an angry red line in the hull, straight through the face of the lion emblem, giving it a scar to match Shiro’s.

‘ _Watch it, Lance! We need Red in one piece!’_ Keith complained, dashing away as several explosions followed the line he’d drawn through the hull.

‘Aw, she’s fine, aren’t you girl?’ Lance replied, hitting a fighter that was coming up on Keith’s six with his tail laser.

‘ _Just watch out!’_ Keith snapped back, sending one last laserbeam to the weakened area of the hull until the whole thing exploded. _‘Behind you!’_

On instinct, Lance shot straight upwards in the air, cartwheeling, as three fighters rocketed past him, weapons firing. Keith shot down two before Lance had a chance to right himself, but he got the third when it passed Keith to turn around and try again.

‘ _Who the hell are these guys?’_ Keith grumbled.

‘ _Alteans_ ,’ their Allura answered over comms. _‘From the reality we stole the transreality comet from.’_

‘ _How the hell did they get this powerful in only a matter of weeks?’_ Keith demanded, another pair of fighters becoming fireballs in front of him.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lance reminded him firmly. ‘Let’s just make sure they don’t spread their twisted version of peace into this reality, okay?’

‘ _Right_ ,’ Keith muttered. _‘Hunk,’_ he called louder, _‘Allura, where are you at with that canon?’_

‘ _Fighters are making it hard to get a run at it,’_ Pidge replied. ‘ _They’re doing their best to stop us from getting close, but at least Hunk can still make it through with his armour.’_

‘ _We’re keeping them occupied,’_ Allura agreed. A fighter flew past Lance’s viewport, half frozen over with ice. Several others swerved to get out of it’s way.

A burst of light in the opposite direction was accompanied by a whoop of triumph from Hunk and Pidge. _‘We got it!’_ he crowed.

‘Good job, buddy!’

‘ _Great work,’_ Keith agreed. _‘Now lets see if we can help out McClain’s team with the big one.’_

Pidge gasped. _‘Wait, Keith, we’ve got incoming!’_

‘Who?’ Lance demanded, dodging a stray shot.

A bright purple beam of light crashed through the hull of the middle ship, which had been left defenseless but relatively intact as the team moved on to more important things.

‘ _Lotor!’_

‘ _Take him out!’_ Keith ordered.

‘ _But- he’s a future paladin!’_ Hunk spluttered.

‘Right now, he’s an enemy,’ Lance reminded him. ‘Lotor showing up is nothing good for us.’

‘ _Dont shoot!’_ The comms from the other team Voltron had been reconnected to Lance’s dashboard. The Green Lion’s cockpit appeared in a small window. Lotor’s face was bleached eerily grey, the green lighting clashing horribly with his purple complexion.

‘Yeah, you would say that,’ Lance pointed out.

‘ _Just wait,’_ Lotor insisted.

The next minute, Pidge called out, ‘ _Incoming transmission!’_

‘ _Show me,’_ Keith allowed, and then another face appeared on Lance’s screen.

‘ _Paladins of Voltron,’_ Prince Lotor announced, a small smirk on his face. He was wearing Galra armour in the cockpit of a small ship, his white forelock visible under his helmet. ‘ _Isn’t this an interesting turn of events? It seems for once, we have a common enemy. Might I suggest a temporary truce until we repel these invaders?’_

‘We don’t need your help,’ Lance snapped, at the same time McClain said, ‘ _Fine, get your ion cannon over here!’_

‘ _Hey!’_ Keith protested.

‘ _Trust me!’_ McClain insisted, and cut the transmission again.

Keith growled in frustration. _‘Everyone keep an eye on Lotor, he makes any move we don’t like, we take him out._ ’

‘Copy!’ Lance agreed, then his attention was taken up by an incoming group of enemy fighters.

The battle would soon be over. Lance could sense the rhythm of the fight changing as it went on, the number of fighters was swiftly dwindling. The remaining ship was heavily guarded, but with the arrival of Lotor's team and two teams of Voltron, the ship was turning around, back towards where they had emerged into this reality. Parts of the interior looked like it was on fire, the bridge was dead and silent, evacuated once the team from the future had done enough damage. Lance spotted a few small vessels fired from the ship and called them out. Lotor’s ship immediately went to intercept, not to shoot them down, but to fire tow cables at the nearest ones he could get his hands on.

‘Lotor’s taking the enemy escape pods!’ Lance warned.

‘ _We can’t let him get a hold of any survivors from the other reality!’_ Allura said. _‘There’s too much information we can’t let him have-’_

‘ _Lance and I will intercept,’_ Keith decided. ‘ _The rest of you stay on the enemy ship!’_

‘You get the pods, I’ll cover for you!’ Lance suggested.

‘ _Got it!’_

They both dived forward, Lance laying down covering fire as Keith once again summoned his jawblade, slicing through Lotor’s cables of purple light. Lotor’s ships swerved out of the way, returning fire. Lance ducked and swerved through the vacuum towards them, aiming to be as annoying as possible to give Keith the space he needed to retrieve the pods.

Coran’s face appeared onscreen. _‘Get them into the castle, they’ll be out of his reach there. Shiro and I can take care of them.’_

‘ _Good idea,_ ’ Keith agreed. Black dived towards the castle, one pod between the lion’s front paws, and one in her jaws. Lance cleared a path for him, taking out the last of the fighters. Behind him, a shot from the other of Lotor’s ships killed the thrusters of the retreating battlecruiser. Keith spotted the opportunity. _‘Everyone, engage Lotor,’_ he ordered. _‘He’s here for the Commonwealth prisoners!’_

‘ _Wait!’_ McClain shouted, and Lance hesitated for a second at the desperate earnestness in his voice. He didn't trust Lotor at all, but McClain seemed so sure...

‘ _Lance!_ ’ Keith called, regaining Lance’s attention. ‘ _This is our reality, our decision.’_

Lance met his eyes through the video feed. Keith was right. They couldn’t let Lotor get away. It was five against two now, fighting over the escape pods still flooding from the Commonwealth ships. Lotor’s ships split up, forcing the team to do the same. Coran had deactivated the castle’s defenses now they were fighting in such close quarters, moving to pick up the escape pods and stay out of the way of Lotor’s particle-barrier-destroying cannons. It was a game of cat-and-mouse, and Lance found his full attention devoted to not getting shot by the powerful purple beams of light. Lotor’s new ships were faster than most of the lions, however, and was just as successful at staying out of danger. One dived for one of the few remaining pods floating through space, heading towards the anomaly, as the big ship finally exploded. The force of the blast sent debris hurtling through the battlefield, and Lance was thrown off course by a hunk of metal ramming into him from behind. The force of impact threw Lance forward in his seat, and if it weren’t for his helmet he would have given himself a concussion when his head hit the dashboard. Over the comms he heard several of his teammates cry out. Shiro’s voice sounded in his ear, asking if everyone was alright.

‘ _Lotor’s getting away!_ ’ someone said. In the chaos of shouting, Lance wasn’t sure who. He was hit by another piece of shrapnel that surely dented Red’s armour and was forced to move out of the battle zone to avoid any more damage. Some of Red’s systems were now blinking angry alerts at him, making the normal red light of the lion’s cockpit even more intense than usual as alarms blared around him.

Lance spun in time to see Lotor’s ships jump away from the battle, leaving the two Voltron teams and the shattered remains of the Commonwealth fleet behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try to get chapter 10 out very soon, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. I have to make a decision regarding the ending of this story and I'm still on the fence about it. It's possible there may be a few chapters left to go, but we'll see.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uni has been kicking my ass since the semester returned so........ that's my excuse for why this took so long to update. Sorry, guys.
> 
> Also! Shiro likes boys!!! I am still shook tbh and already in love with the adashi ship. Sorry guys. Obviously, Shallura will still happen but I have the rest of the fic entirely planned out now but I may slip some (past) adashi in here somewhere. Just a warning for you hardcore Shallura shippers.

When Pidge met up with the rest of her team in the hangars, surrounded by empty pods, an argument was already well underway.

‘You could have hurt him!’

‘He’s the enemy, Lance! That’s the  _ whole point! _ ’

Keith and McClain, one in red armour, one in black, were close enough to do serious damage to each other if fists started flying. Keith was livid, shoulders raised stiff with tension, fists clenched at his sides. McClain, in true Lance fashion, had his hands flailing, moving from raised in defense to pointed in accusation to clenched in anger within moments of each other.

‘You don’t know him like I do!’ McClain spat. ‘He’s not-’

‘Enough!’ Shiro ordered and Keith flinched at his tone, but fell silent. The fight drained out of McClain all at once and Pidge felt herself start to relax. Shiro had arrived from escorting the last of the prisoners to the detention deck- which they  _ had,  _ apparently, and that was news to Pidge, since they’d had to put Sendak in a cryopod for security reasons back when they first left Arus. Even after living there for months, the castle was still full of surprises.

‘Cursory interrogation of the prisoners confirms the readings,’ announced Lotor, who had arrived a step behind Shiro. ‘The Commonwealth got to this reality through our own. They took advantage of the time difference. As for my... counterpart...’ he said the word with something like distaste, white brows furrowed. ‘Discovered the disturbance and arrived to investigate. He gathered data for research purposes. If he had managed to get away with some prisoners, they would have been able to fill in more gaps, but he didn’t, so what he got out of this encounter was minimal.’

‘How do you know?’ Lance- the younger one- asked, suspicion clear in his tone.

Lotor fixed him with a surprisingly frank look. On him, it never failed to be disarming. ‘Because it is what I would have done at the time. I know what his ships are capable of, what he would be able to find out about the anomaly and other universes with the resources he had at his disposal tonight and I can tell you, there is not an awful lot he can do with them without more data. You were lucky.’

McClain threw his arms up. ‘See? Lotor’s not a problem right now.’

‘Says  _ Lotor _ ,’ Keith retorted and Lance sniggered, turning it into a coughing fit.

‘You’re missing the point,’ Lotor sighed and when Pidge looked, there was something incredibly bright shining in his odd eyes. It was a look she'd caught on him now and then over the last week. On Lance, it would have looked like joy, on Shiro like hope, on Allura, nostalgia. On Lotor... Pidge couldn't be sure. ‘The fleet came from  _ our reality _ . We know where the anomaly is. We can go home.’

‘Home?’ Allura, the one in red, whispered after a beat of echoing silence. There was such naked longing in her voice that Pidge wanted to look away. She felt disbelieving rawness of it in her own chest. If Pidge had found a way home, to her own family... she would probably sound exactly the same. The kind of unexpected hope that actually hurt, a sudden, tentative joy so powerful it ached.

Lotor turned an astonishingly kind smile on her, disarming in it's honestly, that same set of emotions clearly written on his own face, brought suddenly to the surface. ‘Home.’

* * *

 

The second lot of scans confirmed it. The reality the Commonwealth ships had arrived from was the one they had been looking for. Akira wanted to cry with relief, gathering the small number of possessions she had with her into her arms for the journey home.  _ Home _ . It had been over a month since she'd seen her father, her uncles, her home. She had her team with her and that was a comfort, but this castle of lions was too full of ghosts, and there were too many people missing that shouldn't be.

She hurried from her room down to where Blue was waiting for her, mouth already open as the man who thought he was Shiro helped her Uncle Lance fill Blue’s cargo hold with the prisoners they'd captured during the battle. They would be taken to Olkarion when they returned to their reality. It was one of the last holdouts against the invading forces, and the capital of the old Voltron Coalition her family had formed during the war with the Galra Empire. The prisoners would be safe there.

‘Kira!’ Uncle Lance waved her over as he emerged from Blue’s mouth. ‘You ready?’

Akira grinned, but it faded at the look on his face. There was something sad in Lance's expression that reminded her of what she was leaving behind and that kind of sorrow was infectious. ‘As I'll ever be,’ she said and glanced over at where the rest of her team was gathered, saying goodbye to their counterparts. Uncle Lance walked past her on his way to clap a hand on the shoulder of his own younger counterpart, turning to gesture at her that she should go and put her things away in her lion so she could join in the farewells.

When she re-emerged, everyone seemed to be waiting for her. She took her place between Uncle Lance and her mother, smiling sadly at the row of younger team members opposite.

‘Thank you for everything you've done,’ Mom said. Her words were heavy, stripped of her usual diplomatic confidence, leaving only the raw, heartfelt gratitude audible in the slight waver of her voice, the slight hitch in her tone betrayed what Akira knew they were all feeling as she said, ‘It was good to see you all again.’ Akira understood her hesitancy. They weren't all going home.

Young Hunk was wiping at his eyes and on an impulse, Akira stepped forward and pulled him into a tight hug. The arms that wrapped around her were familiar, brought out some of the best memories of her childhood, and Akira clung to that for a moment before letting go. Hunk leaned into Lance who grinned down at her and used his free arm to give her a hug as well.

‘See ya, Blue,’ he said and Akira winked at him as she moved down the line.

‘I’m glad I met you, Keith,’ she said into the Black Paladin’s armoured shoulder. Keith was so surprised at his hug that he froze and Akira smirked up at his shocked face when she pulled away. It faded quickly, however, their last conversation weighing heavily on both of their minds. She asked quietly, ‘You talk to Lance yet?’

Keith shook his head minutely. ‘I will,’ he promised, eyes serious, and Akira felt some heavy weight drop from her shoulders. Shiro would be okay. Lance and Keith would make sure of it.

‘Good,’ she said, and moved on.

Kuron’s expression was awkward when she reached him. It wasn't a look that Akira had ever seen on that face and she couldn't help feeling awkward in return. With a small smile, however, he reached out and Akira gratefully fell into his embrace, pretending for a moment she was back in her father's familiar arms. It was a pleasant reminder- not that she needed it- of what she was going home to. Allura’s arms wrapped around her shoulders when Kuron released her, as calm and warm as ever. When Akira stepped back and glanced at where her mom was standing, watching silently as the rest of her team followed Akira’s example, some shaking hands or murmuring thank yous and goodbyes instead, she saw something that looked suspiciously like tears in her eyes.

‘Good luck,’ the younger Allura said, calling Akira’s attention back to the people in front of her and Akira smiled.

‘You too.’

Coran was next, murmuring gentle words as he accepted her tight hug, and then all that was left was Pidge.

She took a long breath. If Kuron had been a reminder of what was waiting for her on the other side of the anomaly, Pidge was a reminder of what she was leaving behind. Akira felt tears prick her eyes as she looked down at familiar golden brown eyes for what would be the final time.

‘I wish we had been able to talk more,' she said. 'But you were so busy with finding a way home and I didn't want...' she trailed off, the weight of reality settling on her shoulders like a concrete cloak. She fought to keep her voice clear and composed. Pidge looked like they wanted to apologise and Akira couldn't deal with that, not now. 'We never got to say goodbye... Last time,’ she said a little hopelessly, choking a little on the last word. ‘I'm going to miss you.’

‘That was Matt's voice over the comms this morning,’ Pidge said, her own gaze far away and glazed with unshed tears, though they wouldn't be for the same reason. Akira nodded, though she was sure Pidge needed no confirmation. Pidge took a deep shaking breath, a smile slowly breaking through. ‘Tell him... tell him I said hi.’

Akira let out a dry sob and threw her arms around Pidge’s shoulders- she was much taller compared to Pidge than she was used to that it just made the urge to cry worse - and hugged them tight. Pidge hesitated for a moment, then wrapped her arms around Akira’s waist, hugging her back. ‘I will,’ Akira promised.

‘See you later, Akira,’ Pidge said, adjusting her glasses as Akira pulled away. She glanced over to where Kuron and Allura were farewelling Lotor. ‘Maybe.’

Akira smiled, watching the exchange. ‘Bye Pidge.’ A hand fell onto her shoulder and she looked up to see her Black Paladin smiling sadly down at them both. He ruffled Pidge’s hair with his other hand and squeezed Akira’s shoulder.

‘Come on, kiddo,’ he said. ‘Let's go home.’

 

Back in the Blue Lion’s cockpit, Akira put her helmet on and took a deep, steadying breath. A smile split her face as she launched Blue into the void, hot on Lotor’s heels, aiming for the invisible anomaly, the gate between realities.

It flashed blindingly bright and she closed her eyes as she guided the Blue Lion through until the brightness faded. The space before her was unremarkable, ordinary, apart from the just-visible remains of a Commonwealth fleet in the distance and a very familiar ship heading towards them.

Lance's voice echoed over her helmet speakers. ‘ _Yes!_   _ Attention Castle of Lions, this is Voltron. Ta daaa! We’re back!’ _

A comms channel opened up and her father's face appeared in front of her, a look of profound relief painting his face under a familiar head of white hair. ‘ _ Lance!’ _ he cried and Akira grinned at the sound. ‘ _ Is everyone alright? What happened?’ _

‘We're fine, dad,’ she said and Shiro looked like he was about to drop in relief.

Coran and Matt's faces both popped up behind him and Matt asked, ‘ _ Where the hell have you been?’ _

‘ _ We took a detour into the past,’ _ Hunk replied.  _ ‘Back when we were still fighting the Galra. We'll explain properly once we're onboard.’ _

' _You better,_ ' Matt laughed.

Akira guided her lion towards the Blue Lion's hangar and sent Matt a wide watery smile. ‘by the way,’ she said, the dam close to breaking. ‘Pidge says hi’.

* * *

 

By the time Akira’s lion had disappeared from view at the tail end of the bizarre convoy future Voltron had made, and Allura and Pidge had headed out to close the anomaly for good, the sleepless night and battle afterwards were beginning to take their toll on Lance. Excusing himself from the bridge, Lance quietly made his way back to his room, ready to flop down onto the mattress and sleep for a week.

He'd managed the first part when, for the second time that night, someone started banging on his bedroom door. Lance buried his face in his pillow but the banging didn't stop, so he lifted his head just enough to yell, ‘Come in already!’ and flopped back down with a groan.

For the second time that night, Keith entered in a whirlwind of agitation that Lance could hear, if not see.

‘Lance, I still need to talk to you, there's-’ Keith cut himself off and Lance lifted his head from where he was slowly suffocating himself with his pillow and cracked one eye open. Keith's hair was a mess, like he'd been pulling at it, but his eyes were narrowed in that way he always got when Lance was doing something stupid. ‘You're sleeping in your armour.’

Lance groaned and sat up because Keith was right, obviously not leaving, and Lance couldn't ignore the discomfort of lying on his front in full armour now he wasn't heartbeats away from drifting off to sleep. He glared at Keith, remembering with no small amount of jealousy that he had presumably also not slept a wink before the battle either, and yet he looked perfectly alert. ‘What?’ he grumbled, pulling off his chest plate.

Keith blinked several times before he managed to regain his train of thought. ‘Shiro's a clone,’ he blurted, nearly tripping over his words.

Lance froze in the middle of removing his boots. ‘ _ What? _ ’

‘Akira told me before she left,’ Keith powered on and started pacing. ‘Shiro's a clone. A- a sleeper agent planted by Haggar to- I don't know what exactly, but it doesn't end well in their reality and-’

‘Hey, slow down. Where's the real Shiro?’ Lance interrupted, cutting off Keith's frantic rambling before his rising panic infected him too. ‘The others got their Shiro back, right? Otherwise Akira wouldn't exist. So where is he?’

‘Everything Akira knows is on this,’ Keith held out something in his palm. It looked like a normal Earth-made USB. ‘I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. The Commonwealth arrived before I could.’

‘Okay, what else did she say?’

Keith’s fist clenched around the USB. ‘She called him- the clone- she called him “Kuron”. Haggar takes over his- his mind and he... He kills a bunch of coalition people.’ Lance stood up, Keith’s agitation seeping under his skin, propelling him to his feet. ‘He...’ Keith swallowed and tried again. ‘He... died.’

Lance stopped breathing for a moment and had to make a conscious effort to start again. He felt like he wanted to throw up. Shiro, killing innocent people... it hurt too much to think about. ‘When?’ he managed to ask.

‘Akira said- we have time,’ Keith said, voice rough. ‘To- to plan. To get him back before... before there’s any permanent damage. Hopefully.’

The way Keith said it made Lance think he wasn’t talking about the war. He coughed to clear his throat, dread weighing down his chest, making it hard to breathe. ‘Damage?’

There were tears in his eyes and Lance flexed his hands at his sides. He wanted to hug him, to... do  _ something _ to comfort him, but he’d never seen Keith ask for something like that from anyone but Shiro. The thought made him hesitate, even in the face of such raw vulnerability, the likes he’d never seen from Keith before. ‘To Shiro. His mind, it- it... broke.’

‘ _ No. _ ’ Shiro had survived a year fighting for his life in Galra prison. If that couldn’t break him, what could?

Keith nodded, but seemed to have finally run out of words. For once, Lance found himself grasping for them himself, unsure of what to say, of what to do, of what Keith needed.

‘You came to me though,’ Lance realised suddenly, latching onto the one fact he knew for certain, the thought startling him into speech. ‘Twice. Why? We're not exactly...’

What? Friends? Lance was well past denying that. Close? Maybe not as close as Lance would like, but-

‘You're my right hand man,’ Keith said before Lance could decide how he wanted to finish his sentence. ‘And Akira said you'd know what to do.’

Lance stared at him, mouth agape. ‘I...’

‘I can't do this alone anymore,’ Keith admitted, some of the exhaustion finally leaching into his voice as his shoulders slumped. ‘I can’t lead like Shiro did. I was stupid to try. The Black Lion showed me... I need your help.’ Now he'd said what he wanted to say, he seemed to lose all that frantic energy, like a puppet with its strings cut. To Lance’s surprise, his forehead dropped heavily onto Lance’s shoulder, like he couldn’t keep it up on his own anymore. Lance stood impossibly still, part of him convinced that any movement would send Keith scurrying away. He could feel Keith’s warmth through his flightsuit, spreading from his shoulder into his chest, down his arm.

Something Garrett said suddenly flashed through Lance’s mind.

_ You're the one that holds us together through everything. _

_ Not some day in the future. _

_ Not once you're Black Paladin. _

_ You now. _

_ From the beginning. _

And maybe that was it. Maybe that was Lance’s place in the team. He wasn’t a leader, though if McClain really was him, that might change some time in the future, but Lance couldn’t find it in himself to hope for that anymore. Not when taking the mantle of Black Paladin had such a heavy price. Keith’s life wasn’t worth it. Shiro’s mind wasn’t worth it. Neither of them deserved any of this.

‘Yeah,’ Lance cleared his throat in an attempt to dispel the roughness in his voice. ‘Yeah, okay. We'll figure it out.’ Cautiously, giving Keith plenty of warning and chances to pull away, he placed a gentle, comforting hand on the small of his back and his traitor heart skipped a beat when Keith’s gaze shot up to meet his, a raw, indecipherable look on his face just inches from Lance’s own. ‘We'll find him,’ Lance promised, calm but insistent. Steady, the way Keith seemed to desperately need in that moment. ‘We'll bring him home, I promise.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original plan, I was going to finish the story here and pick up the saving Shiro arc as a sequel-type thing but honestly, even though that arc doesn't have any of McClain's team in it, I think structurally, its better to keep going with the Operation Kuron arc as the final third of this story. If you disagree, let me know. I'm still a little torn to be honest. Anyway, we're on the home stretch now, so stay tuned!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh this semester is already getting away from me, hence the sporadic updating. My midsemester break starts at the end of the week though, so I will have more time to update very soon. A huge thank you too everyone who has hung in there with me through the non-existent update schedules and the weird characterisation of future characters (I stand by Green Paladin Lotor- or at least, the Lotor presented to us in seasons 4 and 5 and the first half of season 6 could have one day been a green paladin if he hadn't been faking it all along/a crazy murderous bastard underneath a veneer of a character with potentially interesting character growth- but I digress) and my shameless love of Akira.
> 
> Fun fact: I'd like to say I chose Akira's name because it was Keith's name in the original anime, but I actually didn't know that at the time. My research just said it could be a girl's name and I wanted her to have a Japanese name like her dad. Now, though, I've realised that it's perfect because now I can say that the future versions of Shiro and Allura named their daughter after Keith because by that time Keith was.... you know.... dead.

Three days after their future versions returned to their own reality, Pidge was woken up in the middle of the night by a very serious looking Lance.

‘Pool room. Three minutes,’ he said quietly. ‘Go straight there, don’t talk to anyone. Don’t make a sound.’

And then he left before Pidge could even open her mouth.

The seriousness in Lance’s tone left no room for argument. The gravity in his gaze had Pidge moving to obey without conscious decision. Silently, she dressed herself and crept out of her room towards the elevator. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t a game. Lance wasn’t _that good_ of a liar.

Hunk was stepping into the elevator when she reached it. He held it open without a word, obviously under the same instructions as she. They didn’t speak all the way up to the pool room. Something tense buzzed in the air around them, like they both knew something serious was about to happen.

Keith and Lance were both standing in one corner of the room when they arrived, the lights reflecting off the water above their heads casting ethereal splashes of light and shadow across their faces, adding to the strangeness of the scene. This place was so rarely used, Pidge had forgotten it existed. Perhaps, her brain supplied helpfully, that was exactly the point.

When Allura and Coran arrived, both looking just as bewildered as Pidge felt, something cold and solid settled deep in her gut. The Black and Red Paladins made their way over, both with faces carefully blank and shoulders tense.

‘What’s going on?’ Allura demanded, picking up on the mood coming off them both in waves.

‘We received some information from Akira before she left,’ Keith began. ‘We-’

‘Shouldn’t we wait for Shiro?’ Hunk blurted. ‘I mean, surely we should all be here for this if it’s so important. Why are we here, anyway? This isn’t exactly a top meeting place, bro.’

‘Hunk,’ Lance said, still deadly serious, from just behind Keith’s right shoulder. They shared a look that Pidge hadn’t seen Lance wear before- a _shut up and listen_ look more suited to Shiro at a mission briefing than Lance at the poolside.

Keith, who had momentarily looked like he’d swallowed a lemon at Hunk’s interruption, glanced back at Lance with puzzled brows. Lance just nodded once at Keith and the Black Paladin’s shoulders relaxed minutely. He turned back to face the group. ‘None of what we say can leave this room,’ he ordered. His tone was the one Pidge had grown to associate with Keith in the Black Paladin role. Urgent, decisive, giving orders and expecting them to be followed. ‘And under _no circumstances_ is anyone to mention this to Shiro.’ A series of sharp protests fell from the lips of Allura, Hunk and Coran. Pidge remained silent, waiting for the final piece of the puzzle.

‘No, guys.’ Lance held a hand up to silence them. He moved so he and Keith were standing shoulder-to-shoulder. ‘Listen. If Shiro finds out about this, we could all end up dead. Goodbye Voltron, goodbye universe.’

Allura stepped forward. ‘Surely that’s being dramatic-’

‘Shiro isn’t himself, Allura,’ Lance interrupted, meeting her eyes and holding them. He stood totally still, shoulders square, and in that moment, he looked so like Black Paladin McClain that Pidge had to blink away the image of him with black armour and greying hair. Seventeen year old Lance was in his usual jeans, T-shirt and jacket, but somehow that did nothing to lessen the impact. Keith stood at his side, looking at everyone in turn, confirming Lance’s statement, letting it all sink in.

‘When Shiro was held prisoner by the Galra for a year, Haggar experimented on him,’ Keith explained. ‘We knew this. What we didn’t know until Akira told us, is that, in her reality at least, one of those experiments was something called Operation Kuron. Haggar created clones of him, and when he disappeared after that final battle with Zarkon, she sent a clone of Shiro back to us. Using magic, she could see and hear everything he did, and, eventually, was able to take over his mind completely, controlling his thoughts and movements.’ He took a deep breath. ‘She used him to spy on us, and... to kill.’

Allura’s hands flew to her mouth, eyes wide. Hunk hugged himself and glowered at the floor. Pidge found herself searching Keith and Lance’s faces. She clenched her jaw hard enough to ache, but managed to keep her breathing steady, her thoughts clear. She had studied the programming of Shiro’s arm inside and out over the last few months. She had neutralised what she could and created contingencies for what she couldn’t. She knew what Keith and Lance were saying wasn’t out of the realms of possibility. Whatever that meant in a space war and an ever-expanding universe.

‘What do we need to do?’ she asked. That cold thing in her stomach solidified further, fed by the cold anger seeping into her veins. Haggar was trying to use their own people against them. She couldn’t let that happen. Not to Shiro. Not to her team. Not the only family she had left.

‘First, we need to find out if it’s true,’ Lance said. ‘Just because it happened in their reality doesn’t mean it can or will happen in ours.’ He said it like he was trying to convince himself, and Pidge immediately understood why. If their Shiro wasn’t a clone, maybe what they learned about the future for Pidge and Keith wouldn’t be true for them either.

Pidge thought quickly. ‘If I can get him in a cryopod for long enough, maybe we can check his DNA for clone markers, look for anything that doesn’t match what we have for Shiro on file. Anything that looks out of place.’ She looked over at Coran. ‘Can we do that with what we have in the medbay?’

Coran frowned. ‘DNA analysis would take a long time, but if there are any other signs, we’d be able to spot them with scans. The trouble would be persuading him to submit to the tests without good reason.’

Keith said, ‘We have to assume that whatever Shiro knows, Haggar does too. If anything tips either of them off that we suspect him... it could drastically increase the timeline.’

‘What happened, exactly?’ Allura asked, speaking for the first time since the revelation. ‘In the other reality. What happened to... to the real Shiro?’

Keith’s fists clenched at his sides and Pidge held her breath, waiting for whatever painful piece of information he was holding onto. ‘His mind, it... attached itself to the Black Lion. He’s stuck there, in the astral plane... moving between realities. Its... not ideal.’

‘And his body?’ questioned Coran.

Lance’s face hardened for a moment. ‘Dead. Or, at least, they thought so.’

A heavy silence fell over the room. Then, Pidge remembered something important.

‘But, that can’t be right,’ she said. ‘Shiro can’t be dead.’

‘Pidge...’ Keith began, but she waved her hands to stop him before he could get any further.

‘No, I mean, it’s impossible. Akira is his kid, right? That means he can’t be dead. She talked about him like he was still, you know, around.’

Keith and Lance shifted uncomfortably. ‘We didn’t really understand how,’ Lance admitted, ‘but somehow, it looks like Allura managed to, uh, transfer Shiro’s soul? Mind? Quintessence? We’re not sure, but she put Shiro into his clone’s dead body.’

‘But that’s-’ Coran began.

‘Horrible,’ Hunk said.

‘Impossible,’ Allura finished at the same time. ‘I don’t know how to do that. It’s Quintessence manipulation the likes of which I could never even _dream_ -’

‘Maybe not right now,’ Pidge pointed out. ‘Maybe you just need to look-’

‘That sort of magic isn’t the kind that you can just learn from a book, Pidge,’ Allura sighed. ‘It’s... dark magic. Quintessence needs to accept it’s host. If I had Shiro’s original body, it would be simpler, I would just be moving his mind from a temporary container to it’s true self, the same way I channel quintessence from the ship’s crystal to the teleduv to create wormholes. A clone is... different. Even with alchemical knowledge far beyond me, the risk of Shiro’s new body rejecting his consciousness is dangerously high. It would be the like trying to create a robeast. Haggar can do it with power I can barely understand, and a whole army of druids behind her. Even still, they’re dangerous, but hardly... intelligent creatures.’

Pidge chewed on her lower lip in thought. ‘So, either we find a way to make that happen, somehow, or we look for Shiro’s true body?’

‘That’s _if_ he’s a clone, guys,’ Hunk pointed out, fidgeting on the spot. ‘If he’s not, then we don’t need to worry, right?’

‘That’s the first step,’ Lance nodded. ‘After that, it gets tricky.’

‘So we run a scan on Shiro to see if he’s a clone, somehow, without him realising what we’re doing,’ Pidge confirmed. One huge problem at a time. ‘Then what? If he is a clone, what do we do?’

‘We do what we did with Sendak,’ Keith said. ‘We ambush him and put him in a cryopod until we can sever his connection with Haggar.’

‘And how do we do that?’ Hunk asked.

‘We cut off his arm,’ Keith replied, wincing a little as he said it. ‘That’s Haggar’s way in.’

‘How do you know?’ Allura asked, but Pidge had no trouble believing him.

Lance held something small and black up between his fingers; a USB. ‘Future Pidge did some extensive research. Akira downloaded it off Data and left it for us as a parting gift.’

‘Bless that girl,’ Coran murmured with the hint of a smile.

Pidge lunged forwards and reached for the memory stick in Lance’s hands. He held it out of reach. ‘I’m going to give it to you,’ he said, looking down at her with sad eyes. ‘But be warned, there are some things on here, pictures, accounts... they aren’t pretty.’

Pidge jumped up and snatched it out of his hands. ‘If we’re going to fix this, I need to know.’

‘I know,’ Lance said. ‘But I wish you didn’t have to.’

‘I’m not a little kid, Lance,’ Pidge snapped. ‘I’m a soldier, same as you.’

Lance sighed. ‘I know,’ he repeated and handed over the memory stick. Pidge clutched the USB tightly in her fist, feeling the edges bite into her palm. She let the sensation ground her, settle her anger, keep her head clear. She had a job to do. If she wanted to save her family, she had to stay focused. Rational. Voltron’s mission, their entire universe was at stake. More importantly, Shiro was counting on them, now. Pidge had already promised to herself that she wouldn’t lose any more family to this war. She wasn’t about to go back on her word.

* * *

Something had changed inside Keith since the night he bonded properly with Black for the first time. He could feel her in the back of his mind at all times, like an extra pair of eyes watching his back. It should have been disconcerting – Red had never watched him so closely, and they were still bonded closely enough even now he wasn’t sure some of his more impulsive ideas were strictly all his. Instead, it was a comfort. It allowed him to relax and focus, delegate the constant hypervigilance that itched under his skin since he had found out about Operation Kuron. Or before that, when an older and more scarred version of Lance had looked him in the eye and given him a death sentence. Or before that, when Shiro disappeared without a trace. Twice. Or before that, when-

Regardless, something had changed since that night, when he had gone to Lance for help with this new pressing problem, full of a fractious, buzzing panic that refused to let him sit still, pulled him in too many different directions at once. Lance, even when his expression had looked two seconds away from panic himself, had calmed him enough to hold him together and let him breathe again.

Keith tried not to think about the way the tension had bled from him when Lance raised his arms around him in comfort, or the way Keith, of all people, had initiated the contact in the first place. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to be touched like that, it’s just he didn’t usually allow himself the risk- everyone he trusted enough to hug him had left him and that fact laced every desire he had to be held, cradled, that he could only bring himself to give into it with someone he truly trusted. That usually meant Shiro, but now Keith had found out that even Shiro may have left him- again. Worse, hugging Lance in particular was more dangerous than most. It brought up things better left buried, the seeds of unhelpful emotion Keith was working hard to keep dormant, where they couldn’t wreak havoc on his already compromised heart. It was too much for him to handle, the stress of leading may have been tempered a little by his growing bond with Black, but they still had a war to fight, and he still had Shiro to think about.

He couldn’t afford the distraction right now. Even though Lance had been slowly turning into the person he needed most for other reasons.

It had been Lance that had started making the plan, producing and discarding several ideas in rapid succession until Keith had snatched a hold of one that could work. The discussion back and forth had been calming, familiar, instilling Keith with just enough confidence to focus on the mission he and Lance laid out in those early hours with not nearly enough sleep between them. But time had been a critical factor. That, and making sure Shiro had no idea what they were up to.

They ended up sitting on either end of Lance’s bed, a good few feet of space between them, deep in discussion.Lance had his legs crossed in front of him with his elbows braced on his knees, staring at his hands as he talked. Then, he had looked up at Keith with steady, serious eyes and Keith had suddenly gotten the impression they weren’t just talking about Shiro when he said, ‘Just because it happened in the other timeline- reality- whatever, doesn’t mean it has to happen in this one. We can make sure of it.’ The lights cast the dips and planes of his face into shadow, making him look haggard, weighed down by something other than mere exhaustion. Keith didn’t want to think about what could make happy-go-lucky Lance McClain look like that.

‘Right,’ Keith had said, mouth suddenly dry, and that had become step one.

It had taken three days for them to come up with enough of a strategy to bring in the rest of the team. It had been Keith’s idea to wait until they were ready to act, to ensure Shiro- or the man who thought he was Shiro, whichever the case may be- couldn’t see it coming. Those few days had been tense, and Keith had avoided Shiro as much as possible, lest he give himself away. It wasn’t that unusual between them nowadays, not with them constantly at odds, and that thought was enough to settle Keith’s resolve, because if there was even a _chance_ at getting their relationship back to their normal _Keith and Shiro_ , family in all but blood, Keith had to take it. He would let nothing stop him from getting Shiro back. He owed Shiro this and so much more.

He could see the same resolve in Lance’s eyes, recognised that hard look that had settled into his gaze underneath the usual veneer of smiles and terrible jokes as the same one Keith saw in the mirror everyday. Keith was glad for it. It reminded him he had an ally in this, that he wasn’t alone.

Lance had stood at his side as they laid out all the facts in the eerie light of the pool above, shoulder to shoulder with him, and Keith had expected it to feel like another blow to his tenuous grip on leadership by letting Lance take part of the weight like this. Instead, all he had felt was a wave of immense relief. As strange as it was to think, Keith had felt more like a leg of Voltron, rather than the head with Lance standing with him like that. It felt almost like they could be two pillars, holding the team up. The thought shocked him. He’d never been in that position before. This was uncharted space, and he had no idea what would happen if he messed up, but the set of Lance’s shoulders were more relaxed in that room than they had been in days and Keith realised that this was where Lance’s expertise lay. This was where McClain had been born, forged under the pressure of keeping his team upright and moving. Keith had learned so much about Lance since he had taken over as Red Paladin. He thought maybe Lance wouldn’t mind if he took some of that surprising strength for himself, just until this meeting was over.

With Lance backing him up, and Shiro nowhere to be seen, the team had listened to Keith without protest or hesitation. Unquestionably. Like they had with Shiro. For the first time since Keith had been chosen by the Black lion, he thought maybe he wouldn’t implode under the pressure after all.

Before breakfast the morning after, Lance was waiting for Keith when he emerged from his room and headed towards the kitchen.

‘Hey, man,’ Lance said, none of his usual goof-ballbuoyancy in his voice or his body. ‘Are you ready for this?’ He held himself like he was about to go into battle. Keith understood the feeling, shoulders automatically tensing in anticipation of what was to come.

Keith nodded and breathed deeply for a moment, reaching for that solid steady current that was the Black Lion in the back of his mind, letting it ground him, keep him alert. ‘We can’t wait any longer.’

‘Good,’ Lance said. ‘Shiro will understand, you know,’ he continued after a moment as they stepped into the elevator. ‘If it really is him. He won’t be mad.’ Keith stayed silent. ‘We’re not going to hurt him.’

Keith knew this. It still somehow felt like a betrayal of everything Shiro had done for him. For them all. The team came first, though. The mission was more important than any of them, and Lance was right. Shiro would understand. Still...

He looked at Lance properly for the first time that morning. ‘And if he really is a clone?’

Lance stepped smoothly out of the elevator and turned so he was walking backwards, fixing Keith with his steady gaze. ‘Then we’ll deal with it.’

He turned, face breaking into a smile so suddenly that Keith would have gotten whiplash if he hadn’t seen it happen for the last three mornings in a row, and walked into the dining room.

Shiro, Allura and Coran were already there, as usual, when they arrived. Shiro smiled at them both and gave a little wave. ‘Hey, Keith, I’ve been thinking. I want to practice different team dynamics today. We’ve been breaking up into smaller teams more often recently and we should make sure that we’re able to fight as well in various pairs as we do as a team.’

Keith wasn’t a good liar. He knew that. Shiro, clone or not, would know it too. ‘I actually have something else planned for today,’ he said, trying not to appear like he was choosing his words more carefully than usual.

Allura, sitting across from Lance who had taken the seat to Shiro’s immediate right, sent Keith a sharp look when Shiro asked, ‘Oh?’

‘Breakfast!’ Coran announced, coming back out from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of food goo in his hands. Hunk appeared from behind him, carrying cups of whatever passed as coffee in space. He gave Shiro a wide berth and seemed to have problems looking directly at anyone. Keith tensed, silently begging Hunk not to give them away before their chance presented itself.

‘Hunk, buddy!’ Lance grinned and fixed Hunk with a look, drawing him into conversation as easily as he did every day. Keith relaxed slightly and took the bowl he was handed, serving himself a small helping.

‘Is that _mazudut_?’ Pidge asked from the door. She walked into the room with slightly more grace than usual, but otherwise she looked her normal self. That was a good sign.

‘Actually, we ran out of that yesterday,’ Coran said cheerfully, taking the drinks from Hunk and setting them down and sending the tray in Pidge’s direction. ‘Our last supply run provided us with a perfectly acceptable alternative, however. I believe it is called _mok’e_.’

Pidge reached out with both hands and snatched one of the remaining cups off the floating tray. ‘Hmmmmm...’ She took a thoughtful sniff of the concoction and took a sip.

‘Damn, Pigeon, did you even sleep last night?’ Lance asked with his usual cheer.

Pidge blinked at him. ‘What did you just call me?’

Lance looked between Hunk and Allura opposite him. ‘Uh... Pigeon? Like... the bird?’ He tensed like he was expecting an attack. ‘Why?’

Pidge shrugged. ‘Lotor called me the same thing.’

Lance choked on a sip of _mok’e_. ‘He _w_ _hat_?’

Pidge shrugged and then she smirked. ‘Obviously you aren’t as original as you thought.’

Lance puffed out his chest in a show of offence. ‘Ex _cuse-_ ’

‘Maybe Lotor got it from Lance?’ Hunk suggested, which shut him up rather effectively. At Lance’s horrified look, Hunk shrugged. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘I know we’re still buddies in the future, but Lotor and you seemed pretty close too, man.’

Keith’s fist clenched around his spoon and he stared at it until it relaxed enough for him to put it down, scowling at it. When he glanced up, Shiro was watching him with a thoughtful look that was so like the Shiro from- well, from _before_ , that it left Keith feeling unmoored, adrift, the vaguest panic that _maybe they’re about to make a big mistake-_

Shiro’s eyes rolled back in his head without warning.

‘I got him,’ Lance called out, wrapping his arms around Shiro’s shoulders and easing him down to the table top without hurting himself. ‘Quiznak, he’s heavy.’ The mood sobered abruptly.

Keith stood up. ‘Get him to medbay,’ he ordered, letting that still-unfamiliar team leader persona settle over him.

Allura moved around the table and scooped him up effortlessly, striding towards the door without another word.

Now came the moment of truth.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry its been so long guys. Its all the usual excuses. I also just ran out of steam on this story for a while but I'm back now! I am in the middle of the final university term of the year so that means I will either be posting a lot more frequently because procrastination or disappear again until the second week of November because panic. I look forward to finding out which.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

It took all of five minutes for Hunk’s anxious muttering to get the better of Pidge’s patience. Lance had joined Keith in standing against the wall, unconsciously mirroring him with his arms crossed, bayard inactive in his hand. Coran was at Pidge’s side, calling out data as it came in from the healing pod, and Allura was just standing in front of the only active pod in the room, studying the occupant with a look Pidge couldn’t read, even if she had the disk space to spare on contemplating whatever may or may not be going on between the princess and the possible-clone. The tension in the air was thick and oppressive as they waited for the verdict… Which wasn’t going to be easy to call.

Hunk’s rambling was getting louder. ‘I don’t know guys, what if it really is Shiro and we just  _ drugged _ our leader for no reason. Holy crap, he’s gonna hate us so much-’

‘Someone, get him outta here,’ Pidge snapped. She clenched her fists for a moment. ‘I can’t think.’

‘I got him,’ Lance said. He grabbed Hunk by the arm and guided him out of the room.

For a moment, silence reigned. Pidge sighed and kept sifting through data, searching for that conclusive piece of evidence that would tip the balance of probability one way or the other.

‘Have you found anything?’ Keith murmured from behind her.

‘If I had found anything, I would have  _ told _ you,’ Pidge growled, rapid fingers typing on a keyboard.

‘How-’

The door opened behind them.

‘Keith,’ Lance's voice interrupted. He didn’t say anything else. Pidge glanced up in time to see him giving Keith a meaningful look.

‘Give her time, number four,’ Coran said gently. ‘We’ve barely started.’

Keith nodded, and his shoulders slumped. ‘Right. Sorry.’

Pidge sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry. This is going to take a while. Why don’t you go get some air too?’

‘As soon as you find  _ anything _ , you let us know,’ Keith ordered, and Pidge saluted in his general direction with two fingers without looking up. The door closed behind them both and Pidge sighed in relief.

After a few minutes, Allura’s voice filtered through Pidge’s hyper-focused haze. ‘Coran, what’s that noise?’

Pidge blinked away the numbers searing themselves into her brain and then she heard it. The pod was beeping.

Coran went still. ‘That’s not good.’

Inside the pod, Shiro’s eyes opened, and his galra hand slammed into the glass.

* * *

Keith sighed and leaned his head against the wall outside the medbay.

‘Hey, man, are you alright?’ Lance asked quietly.

Keith cracked his eyes open and looked around, suddenly aware they were alone. ‘Where’s Hunk?’

Lance shrugged. ‘Went down to the lab to build something,’ he replied. ‘I offered to help, but I think he just needs some time to focus on something else for a while. Until we know… one way or another.’

Keith sighed. ‘Yeah, I know the feeling.’

Lance studied him. ‘What do you need?’

Keith shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m just… tired,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do. What if Shiro is still out there, Lance? What if we can’t find him? What do we do then?’

Lance placed a warm hand on Keith’s shoulder. He could feel it through his jacket. ‘We will find him. We have you and the Black Lion. We are in a much better position than McClain and his team were when they went through this. We’ll be okay.’

There was something about Lance’s voice that made Keith’s throat tighten until he could barely breathe. The weight of Lance’s hand on his shoulder grounded him in this reality, and Keith clung to that feeling like a lifeline, reaching up with a gloved hand without thinking, to grip the hand already on his shoulder. He thought he heard a tiny gasp and opened his eyes to see Lance's face hovering right above him, mouth slightly open in something like surprise, and Keith had to glance away from the feeling in those eyes.

‘What…’ Keith coughed to clear his suddenly scratchy throat and tried again. ‘What do  _ you _ need?’

Lance didn’t speak. Instead he pulled Keith into him and wrapped both arms around his shoulders. Keith found himself gripping Lance back just as tightly, burying his face in the fabric of Lance’s jacket.

‘Is this… okay?’ Lance murmured into Keith’s neck, and Keith squeezed him back, gently.

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay.’

Keith took a moment to just breathe, feeling Lance do the same in his arms.

‘So…’ Keith said, pulling away once it had been too long not to be a little awkward. Despite the tense situation waiting in the room behind him, Keith found his lips twitching upwards. ‘Do you think you’ll remember it this time?’

Lance frowned. ‘Remember what?’

Keith tried to glare at him but he just wasn't feeling it anymore. ‘I just cradled you in my arms. Again.’

Lance blinked at him. Then, he burst out laughing. ‘Oh, that,’ he said, once he’d calmed down. ‘Yeah, I’ll remember this one. I promise.’ He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, for a moment unable to meet Keith’s eyes. Then, he took a deep breath and said, ‘Actually… Keith, I… I remembered the first one too.’ That last part was mumbled so quietly that Keith almost thought he’d misheard, but the guilty look on Lance’s face proved it wasn’t just his imagination.

‘I knew it!’ he spluttered. ‘I knew you remembered! You-’

He was cut off by a scream echoing from inside the medbay.

They both bolted into action. Lance slammed his hand against the door controls while Keith threw himself through them as they opened, whipping his knife out of its sheath as he nearly toppled through.

Allura was on the floor, bleeding from a cut near her temple, staining her silver hair pink near her eyes. Coran was a crumpled heap on the opposite side of the room. Shiro’s flesh hand gripped Pidge around the neck, threatening to lift her off the floor.

‘Get away from her!’ Lance shouted, but Keith was already moving with a cry, knife raised and extended. Shiro dropped Pidge and intercepted Keith’s strike with his galra arm.

Keith saw the moment Shiro recognised him- and then he saw the moment he didn’t. The knife in Keith’s hand hissed as Shiro’s purple fist gripped it tight and then Keith was flung to the side, his head and back slamming into the wall with enough force that he may have momentarily blacked out. When he blinked away the stars, he saw Pidge scrambling for her desk and Allura struggling to stand. Keith didn’t-  _ couldn’t-  _ hesitate. He lunged.

Shiro fought like a wild animal, face twisted into an inhuman snarl that terrified Keith. It transformed him into something utterly unfamiliar, alien. He raised his Marmoran blade to block the furious swing of Shiro’s prosthetic hand, ducking the blow when the power behind the swing proved too much. Shiro had aimed for the _head-_ _Jesus, he really was trying to kill him-_

A flurry of brown, white and blue slammed into Shiro’s back and he tumbled forward, almost directly into Keith, who managed to dodge at the very last moment, but Shiro turned the momentum to his advantage, twisting in Allura’s grip and somersaulting to land on his feet again with an enraged cry.

Shiro’s hand slashed at Keith’s throat again and Keith was suddenly aware that none of them were in armour - Lance and Keith were the only ones Keith could see who were even  _ armed and they should have planned for this eventuality, this was Keith’s fault- _

Allura’s foot swiped through the air, aiming for Shiro’s head and he threw himself over backwards to avoid it, launching himself at her in retaliation. Pidge screamed again and had to fly out of her chair, laptop clutched tightly to her chest as she watched in wide-eyed horror as Shiro’s move landed him on the table she had been using as a desk. Abandoning her laptop, Pidge threw herself at Shiro and Keith took the opportunity that presented. He swung out with his blade, aiming for the arm Pidge was wrestling with.

‘Get down!’ Lance yelled from somewhere Keith couldn’t see. He dropped to the floor without a moment’s hesitation. Shots rang out from behind Shiro, hitting him in the shoulder, the side, the arm. Under the shock of the impact and the weight of Pidge still clinging to him, Shiro tumbled to the ground. Lance was left standing behind him, tears streaming down his face. Keith could almost imagine the gun was still smoking.

‘Lance!’ Allura gasped, ‘What did you do?’

Keith reached down and with a silent apology to his friend, sliced the robotic arm off as cleanly as he could.

Shiro looked up at him-  _ his Shiro _ , wide eyed and terrified. ‘Keith?’

‘Get him back in the pod,’ Keith ordered Allura, mind racing, then marched up to Lance. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

Lance lowered his gaze to Keith’s. Despite the tears, they were steady. ‘Shiro wouldn’t do that to Pidge. Or Allura, or you. He wouldn’t. So, I took him out. It was non-lethal anyway. I wasn’t going to kill him. I just wanted it to be over.’

As the adrenaline started leaving his system, the anger went with it, leaving him feeling exhausted and strangely hollow.

‘Okay.’ Keith nodded. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Coran?’ Pidge called. Keith glanced over Lance’s shoulder to see her shaking Coran by the shoulders. ‘Coran!’

Allura raced towards them, quickly checking him over. ‘Help me!’ she said, and Keith ducked under Coran’s other arm to get the unconscious Altean to another healing pod. Pidge let out a sob and Keith glanced back in her direction to see Lance wrapping her up in a hug. Their eyes met over the top of her head as Allura took all of Coran’s considerable weight.

‘Does this mean he’s a clone?’ Allura asked once the room had fallen silent and still.

Keith looked between Allura and Lance. ‘I don’t know,’ admitted. ‘Pidge?’

Pidge wiped at her face behind her glasses and opened her laptop, settling herself cross-legged on the floor at Lance’s feet.. ‘I was still going through everything when he broke out of the pod. I don’t… I don’t know! There are some inconsistencies I was investigating but then everything went haywire and-’ she sighed and rubbed at her neck with one hand, a suspiciously hand-shaped bruise was beginning to form there. ‘He has some… scarring that’s just gone missing. I don’t know whether it has just faded with use of the healing pods or not, but… it’s old… like, before he left for Kerberos old. It looked like… like surgery? I don’t know what for, but, there’s no trace of it in him now.’

‘Keith?’ Allura said. ‘Do you know what that’s about?’

Keith closed his eyes and breathed. He heard Shiro’s voice echo through his head, a memory from a simpler time in Keith’s life, back when he had started to believe that Shiro had the solution to everything.  _ They don’t want me to go on the mission. Neither does Adam. _

‘I… Have some idea,’ he admitted. ‘Can these healing pods get rid of scarring like that?’ he asked Allura.

She frowned, studying Shiro’s unconscious face. Keith held his breath. Allura took in a deep breath, expression hardening. ‘No,’ she decided. ‘He’s still got his nose scar, and I’ve never heard of Altean healing pods being able to remove scar tissue once established. Usually, the pods fix wounds well enough to prevent scarring from occurring in the first place, but they can’t get rid of it once it’s there.’

Keith closed his eyes against the anger that welled up inside him at the declaration. So, it was true, then.

‘So, he’s a clone,’ Lance said, voice steady. ‘Akira was right.’

‘Yeah,’ Keith agreed, beginning to feel vaguely ill. ‘He’s a clone.’

* * *

The Black Lion lowered her head to let Keith in as soon as he sprinted into the hangar, mouth open and inviting. As soon as he reached the cockpit, he jumped into into the pilot seat and closed his eyes. He tried to slow his breathing, the heavy thud of his heart in his chest, reaching out for the thread of Black’s consciousness that slept in the back of his mind. He needed to  _focus_ , but Shiro was out there somewhere, he had to be and Keith needed to find him  _now_ -

_ She can’t help you if you don’t let her in.  _

_ You just have to allow yourself to look close enough _ .

McClain’s words echoed through Keith's mind and he latched onto them, focusing on the memory of that first spark of connection, the feeling of brushing against the great wide universe that was the Black Lion's infinite mind. He felt her purr rumble through his head and chest, smoothing away the desperate need and guilt until he could relax and  _think_.

‘I know you’re there, Shiro,’ Keith whispered. Black’s electric presence hummed in the back of his mind, encouraging. With a deep breath, Keith dived deeper into her current, watched the light play behind his eyelids. ‘Come on,’ he begged. ‘Talk to me.  _ Please _ .'

‘Keith.’

Keith’s eyes flew open, but he wasn’t sitting in the Black Lion’s chair anymore.

He was in space. Space that was not space. The infinite star strewn void stretched above him when he looked up, a sight that never failed to suck the breath from his lungs. Below him, in perfect mirror image, another universe spread out at his feet. Two versions of the infinite cosmos and the endless space in between. Infinity times infinity.

If this is where Akira’s Shiro had been stuck for so long, no wonder he had gone mad.

Voices echoed through the place, just on the edge of Keith’s hearing. If he turned in their direction, he thought he could almost see flashes in the distance, maybe a space battle, or a supernova, or something else entirely. Something in Keith warned him not to investigate too closely.

‘Keith.’

There was a hand on his shoulder.

Keith spun around and came face-to-face with Shiro.

The differences between the man before him and the one Keith had left in a healing pod back at the castle were unnerving up close. His first thought was _how could I have possibly believed he was you?_ Keith couldn’t quite put his finger on what exactly was different, it was like the difference between McClain and Lance or Allura and her Red Paladin counterpart. The same and yet not. Shiro smiled down at him and Keith  _ knew _ .

‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘Really you.’

Shiro laughed. His fingers squeezed Keith’s shoulder, though Keith felt nothing. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you since you became the Black Paladin, but it’s been difficult when I’m stuck here.’

‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ Keith promised.

Shiro shook his head and his expression turned somber. ‘You can’t.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I don’t have a body, Keith. I’ve watched that fight over and over in a thousand different ways… I’ve even met a few… alternative versions of me. Sometimes Black’s aim isn’t so good. Most of the time in her attempt to save me, she teleports my body far away, into space and it dies before it anyone can find it.’

Keith swallowed thickly. ‘I only care about one version of you,’ he insisted. ‘Where’s your body?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will Black know?’

Shiro paused. ‘Wherever it is, it will be dead by now,’ he said. ‘There’s no point.’

‘Unless someone is looking after it,’ Keith pointed out. ‘Maybe-’

‘Keith, don’t,’ Shiro interrupted, sighing. ‘The odds of that happening…’

Keith clenched his fists. ‘I won’t just leave you here! I  _ can’t _ .’

‘You might have to,’ Shiro murmured.

‘No.’

‘Keith…’

‘I said  _ no. _ ’

Shiro fixed Keith with a hard stare. ‘Sometimes there isn’t anything you can do. The things I’ve seen since I arrived here, Keith, they’re… Things don’t always work out the way you want them to. You have to accept that.’

‘No!’ Keith protested. ‘I’m going to find you. I’m not giving up. We’re going to bring you back, I promise.’

‘I died, Keith! You can’t bring people back from the dead.’

Keith took in Shiro’s slumped shoulders, his hard, slate grey eyes, and set his jaw. Shiro had never once given up on Keith, even when Keith had given up on himself. It was time to return the favour. ‘Watch me.’

Shiro looked up in surprise and Keith fixed him with his most determined look. ‘You’re not stuck here forever. I won’t let you.’

‘Keith…’ Shiro sighed, but Keith ignored him.

‘Black!’ Keith shouted into the void, loud enough to echo through the strange non-space, opening himself up to her until he was dizzy with the proximity of her infinite consciousness, drowning in her presence. ‘Show me where you put him!’

The world around them shifted. Two sets of stars streaked past their eyes so quickly it made Keith dizzy. The universe around them was zooming in to something, Keith could feel the answer getting closer as a familiar galaxy came into view, hope bursting in his chest. Beside him, Shiro’s eyes were wider than Keith had ever seen them, watching as it became clear where Black was taking them. Keith heard him whisper, ‘ _ of course’ _ under his breath as the final piece slotted into place.

Grinning properly now, Keith turned to him. ‘Black is telepathic, right? You shared your thoughts with her. What was the last thing you thought of before the explosion?’ he asked.

Shiro just stood there, face slack with shock and something else Keith could only barely understand. His lips formed a name, and although he didn't say it out loud, Keith knew him well enough to guess.

‘We’re going to bring you home, Shiro,’ he promised. ‘Just hold on.’

The world between worlds faded and Keith closed his eyes. Feeling returned to his body. He could map out the chair beneath him, the controls gripped loosely in his hands, his heart thudding against his ribs, the smile fading from his face.

He opened his eyes to see the Black Lion’s cockpit surrounding him once more and stood up on slightly shaky legs. Black lowered her giant head to the hangar floor as Keith stumbled down the ramp, where the rest of his team came into view.

‘Did you find him?’ Hunk asked, wringing his hands together.

Keith nodded, something loosening in his chest as he did so. ‘I found him.’

* * *

_ ' _ _ Wormhole opening in five.’ _

Pidge gripped Green’s controls with a little too much force as she guided her lion towards the wormhole opening before her eyes. No one made a sound as Green’s screens were washed with quintessence blue light. Her fellow paladins were so still, they barely seemed to be breathing. Not that Pidge was much better.

‘See you when we get back,’ Keith said to the screen that displayed Allura’s grave face. ‘We’ll be as quick as we can.’

‘Good luck,’ Allura replied, and then her vidscreen winked out.

‘Here we go,’ Pidge muttered, and the Green lion dived through.

‘Oh…’ Lance breathed behind her.

Saturn. The coordinates had them arriving just above the rings of Saturn.

‘Man, this sucks,’ Hunk grumbled.

‘I know it’s hard, but guys, we have to focus,’ Keith reminded them. ‘In and out, like we said.’

‘Roger that,’ Lance replied.

‘Alright, Pidge,’ Keith murmured. ‘Take us home.’


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know this is tagged as Shallura and it still is but there is also some minor(ish) Adashi in this chapter because I love them too and I couldn't stop myself. Please don't be disappointed if you ship Shallura, there's more coming. Just let me have my canon gays too? *insert Shiro has two hands meme here*
> 
> There is also some minor violence and injury in this chapter, but its bordering on canon typical and its not as bad as some of the previous scenes in this fic, but I just figured I'd mention it just in case.

_‘Have I gone on the record yet to say that this sucks?’_ Hunk asked nervously over comms.

‘Focus, Hunk,’ Keith warned. ‘I need you to watch our backs, okay?’

A sigh. _‘I know, I know, it’s just we’re so close to home but we can’t actually go home, you know?’_

‘We will, man,’ Lance said from Keith’s shoulder. ‘Someday we will.’

_‘Coming up to the perimeter,’_ Pidge announced from the cockpit. _‘Reaching second drop-off point in five…’_

Lance tensed, ready to move on her mark.

_‘Four.’_

_‘Are we sure this is a good idea?’_ Hunk asked. No one answered him.

_‘Three.’_

Glancing over, Keith saw Lance bounce on the balls of his feet. Honestly, Keith was surprised at how well Lance was taking being back on home soil. He was always the one who seemed to miss Earth the most, but standing there, Keith could see the seriousness in his expression, eyes sharp and alert under his helmet like this was any other mission.

_'Two…’_  

Lance caught Keith’s eye and the serious façade slipped for just long enough to give him a two-fingered salute just as Pidge said, _‘One,’_ and the floor of the Green Lion’s cargo hold split open sending Lance hurtling towards the Earth.

A moment later, his voice sounded in Keith’s ear. _‘I’m in position.’_

_‘Autopilot engaged,_ ’ Pidge announced. Another door to the side opened with a hiss of hydraulics and she emerged from the cockpit.

‘You ready for this?’ Keith asked quietly.

‘In and out,’ Pidge replied after a deep breath. ‘Just like you said.’ She checked her suit computer. ‘Reaching the drop-zone in five ticks.’

Keith breathed and worked on loosening his tense shoulders. This was going to work. It had to. Shiro was counting on them.

‘Three,’ Pidge said. Through the still open cargo hold door, Keith could see the landscape below change from moonlit desert to man made buildings. ‘Two… One.’

Keith jumped, activating his jetpack to slow the descent, until he landed on the roof of the Galaxy Garrison Arizona facility. Pidge landed right beside him. Without waiting to be discovered, they rushed to the door that lead down into the facility Keith had spent a good deal of his teenage years living in.

The door silently swung open under Pidge’s persuasion. They descended the stairs.

‘We’re in,’ Keith whispered.

‘Calibrating signal,’ Pidge said. Keith waited with baited breath. ‘Got it. You both should be able to see us now.’

_‘I see you_ ,’ Lance said a moment later.

_‘Okay, that’s cool_ ,’ Hunk confirmed. _‘How did you connect the paladin suits to the binoculars?’_

‘Later, Hunk,’ Keith swiftly derailed that train of conversation before anyone could get distracted. ‘Call it, Lance.’

They had reached the bottom stair and Keith pressed his back to the wall beside the door as Pidge did the same on the other side.

_‘Patrol patterns haven’t changed since we left,’_ Lance said. _‘One coming up on your right. Once he’s rounded the corner, you’re good to go.’_

Keith waited silently.

_‘Alright, you’re clear. Go. Go.’_

Pidge opened the door and they both slipped through and down the hall just as a figure in the Garrison uniform turned the corner. They crept silently down to the next intersection.

_‘Wait, back, back, back, you’ve got one approaching on the left.’_

Keith crouched behind a recycling bin. He could hear footsteps approaching and focused on keeping as still as possible.

_‘Guys, I think the instructors lounge is emptying,’_ Hunk said. _‘You gotta get outta there now_.’

Keith swore under his breath and grabbed Pidge by the collar, dragging her through the door right behind him; a deserted classroom. Keith let out a sigh of relief that his gamble had paid off.

_‘Wow, that was close,’_ Hunk breathed.

‘Waiting for your all-clear,’ Keith said.

_‘Just wait a tick,_ ’ Lance replied. _‘Aaaaand… you’re clear. Straight shot to Iverson’s office._ ’

Keith and Pidge piled back through the doorway and down the hall to the second door on the left. Pidge crouched next to it for a moment, typing something on her screen until it opened with a tiny beep and allowed them inside.

‘Searching Garrison network for information on Shiro,’ Pidge whispered. Keith took point by the door just in case they needed to get out in a hurry. ‘Oh, man, I knew it.’

_‘What?’_  Lance and Keith asked simultaneously.

‘The Garrison _did_ pick up a signal from Kerberos. The satellite images-’

‘Not now Pidge!’ Keith hissed.

‘Sorry.’

_‘Someone’s outside the door!’_ Hunk cried, and Keith went still. Pidge froze in front of the screen and hit the screensaver.

_‘Wait, no, it’s okay, they’re moving on. You’re good.’_

Keith let out a long breath. ‘Right, we’ll just have to be quieter. Pidge?’

‘Got him!’ Pidge hissed. ‘Secure Patient Room 12.’

He was here. Shiro was _here._

‘Good. I’m going, then. Hunk, keep an eye on Pidge until she’s uploaded everything we talked about and then guide her out of there to rendezvous with Green. Lance, eyes on me.’

_‘Always.’_

_‘Roger that,’_ Hunk acknowledged.

‘Oh my god,’ Pidge rolled her eyes. Keith chose to ignore her.

The journey to the medical bay went just as well as the journey to Iverson’s office. Thanks to the time of night, the halls were deserted save for the patrols that Lance could spot before they spotted Keith. He was just beginning to relax when he flattened himself against the wall and Lance swore.

‘What?’ Keith demanded quietly.

_‘I see him,’_ Lance replied. _‘He’s in Patient Room 12 like Pidge said, but there’s a problem._ ’

‘What?’

_‘Someone’s in there with him.’_

Keith’s luck had officially just run out.

‘How many? Can you tell who?’

_‘Just one. An officer, by the looks of him. He’s just sitting there. What are you going to do?’_

‘An officer,’ Keith repeated. An idea popped into his head. _Please let him be right._ ‘Lance, are you sure?’

_‘Well, I can’t exactly see details, just shapes, but yeah, looks like it.’_

_Please be who I think it is._ ‘Then I’m going in,’ Keith decided.

_‘What? No! Keith, the mission-’_

‘I know we can’t afford to get caught up in Garrison politics right now, but I think I know who it is. I’m going in.’

Lance sighed hard enough to be audible over comms. ‘Alright. I’ve got your back. You better move.’

Keith slipped into the corridor and was at the door in a few strides. The door was unlocked, so he walked right in.

Lance was right. There was another man in the room. He sat on a chair, slumped like he’d fallen asleep, brown hair messy and his glasses just about falling off his nose. One of his hands clutched the pale one resting on the unruffled sheets.

Shiro.

At the sound of the door opening, the man jerked awake and leapt to his feet. Keith threw his hands up in that universal show of surrender before he could raise the alarm.

‘It’s okay!’ Keith exclaimed. ‘Adam, it’s okay, it’s me.’ He pulled his helmet off slowly and Adam’s shoulders slumped in shock.

‘ _Keith?_ ’ he gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Same as you,’ Keith replied, stepping further into the room. ‘I’m here for Shiro.’

Adam gaped at him. ‘You’ve, uh, grown since I last saw you.’

‘A lot's changed since then,’ Keith replied, a little awkwardly.

‘Your armour…’

‘It’s like the armour Shiro arrived in, isn’t it?’ Keith jumped on the topic. He needed to move quickly. Adam nodded, dumbstruck.

‘Listen,’ Keith said. ‘It’s hard to explain, but I need to take Shiro away with me. I’m here to save him.’

Adam surged forward until his knees hit the bed. Shiro didn’t so much as stir. ‘No, no you can’t, he’ll die!’

‘Not if you help me,’ Keith said. ‘If you help me, I can take him to people who will be able to wake him up.’

‘How do you know what’s wrong with him?’ Adam asked. ‘Keith, where have you _been_?’

Keith hesitated. There was no time to explain everything. There was no _time_. ‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you one day, but you have to trust me.’

Adam was silent. For a moment, Keith thought he was going to refuse, that he was going to sound the alarm. Adam stared down at his hand still clutching Shiro’s for a long moment. When he looked up, there were tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. ‘What’s wrong with him? The medics couldn’t find anything. He just arrived like this.’

‘I'm going to save him,’ Keith said. ‘If you want Shiro back, you'll help me.’

‘How-’

‘I can't explain right now but one day. Soon. You just have to trust me,’ Keith begged. ‘Adam, you know I’d never do anything to hurt him. He’s all I have.’ Adam hesitated. ‘Trust me,’ he repeated. ‘Please.’

Something changed in Adam’s posture. He straightened his back and lifted his head, the way he did when he’d made up his mind on something. ‘Okay. Don’t let me down, kiddo.’

Keith didn’t need telling twice. He darted to Shiro’s bedside, trying his best to be delicate when he pulled out IV lines and disconnected the heart monitor from his chest. The monitor screamed but Adam rushed to turn it off. He helped Adam sit Shiro’s dead weight upright, so they could sling his flesh arm over his shoulders and Keith quickly donned his helmet before he had his arms full of Shiro’s other side.

_‘-eith! Keith, come in! Dammit, respond!’_ Lance’s voice filled his ears as soon as the helmet was in place.

‘Lance, Lance, I’m here, what is it?’ he interrupted Lance’s frantic shouting before it gave him a headache.

_‘Dammit, mullet, what did you take off your helmet for? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a solid minute. You got incoming. Five total.’_

‘How long?’

_‘Thirty ticks out. You gotta go right now.’_

‘On my way.’ He jerked his head to the door to grab Adam’s attention and they headed for the door.

_‘Can you manage Shiro by yourself? Who’s that guy with you?’_

‘I’ve got help,’ Keith replied, shouldering the door open. ‘Doesn’t matter who. Where are they?’

_‘Five meters to the corner,’_ Lance replied. _‘They’re moving quickly. What did you do?’_

‘Nothing!’ Keith whispered, striding for the door as well as he could with Shiro and Adam in tow.

_‘You’re twenty meters away from the nearest exit, down the next corridor and to your left_ ,’ Lance rattled off. _‘If you make it that far.’_

‘We’ll make it,’ Keith insisted, and picked up the pace. They were nearly at the turn.

‘Stop them!’ The voice came from directly behind them and Keith swore loudly.

‘Shit, it’s Admiral Sanda!’

They broke into a full run, just as the gunfire started.

_‘Keith!’_ Lance cried, but Keith didn’t hear anything else he said as Adam swerved to the side to avoid them both getting hit.

Something slammed into Keith’s side, but he kept running, heart racing to keep up with his legs and Shiro’s weight dragging him down.

‘Go!’ Adam cried, ducking out from under Shiro’s other arm. The sudden weight took Keith by surprise and he cried out as the force of it tore something in his side, pain flaring up like fire. He glanced back just long enough to see Adam dart into the line of fire, arms up to grab the attention of their pursuers. Keith could barely hear their voices as he and Shiro rounded a corner.

There! The door at the end of the hall opened to the outside just as Keith caught sight of it. A figure in the doorway silhouetted against the moonlight made Keith’s heart stop in fear for a second before he recognised the familiar shape of the paladin armour.

Lance dashed inside and grabbed at Shiro’s free side, dragging them towards the open door.

‘What are you doing?’ Keith yelled at him over the noise.

‘Saving both your asses!’ Lance shot back, and they tumbled through the door. Lance twisted and dropped Shiro, so he could slam the door shut behind them, shooting the door control with his bayard. It shorted out and went dark. Keith tried to regain control of his breathing, but Shiro was too heavy and he fell to his knees. His side was on _fire_.

‘Oh, quiznack,’ Lance muttered. ‘Pidge, we need you for an emergency evac. We’re not making it to the rendezvous point!’

_‘Copy that, on my way,’_ she replied in Keith’s ear and suddenly there were hands on his shoulders, tilting his face up to the sky.

‘Keith, hey, hey, look at me, man. Where were you shot?’

Keith blinked and tried to sit up but only succeeded in having his vision grey out as the pain flashed through him like a lightning strike. ‘I was shot?’ It came out half a statement, half a question, his mind too full of pain, adrenaline and fear to think straight. Lance was right up in his face, eclipsing everything else until he was all Keith could see.

‘Yeah, looks like it. Look at me Keith, okay? I need to get you guys further away from the building, so Pidge can pick you up. She’ll be here any minute. Can you stand?’

Keith shifted so he was properly lying on his back and tried to sit up. The pain whited out his vision, but this time Lance’s steadying hand was on his shoulder and he breathed through it until he was in a semi-upright position. ‘Yeah, I can,’ he confirmed and allowed Lance to help him all the way up. Lance nodded and grabbed Keith’s left hand, Keith gaped at him, hazy thoughts about how this was the wrong time to hold hands under moonlight distracting him until he realised Lance was guiding it to his side. Keith hissed when it touched his left side, but Lance held firm. His hand glistened when it came away. Keith guessed that was where the pain was coming from, and there was already a lot of blood if that shine was anything to go by, even if he couldn’t see the colour against the black gloves in this light. Fan _tastic_.

Keith heard footsteps somewhere to his right. Apparently, so did Lance, because he yelled, ‘Pidge, where are you?’ lifting Shiro’s dead weight as he spoke.

_‘Right on top of you! Stand back!’_

The air whipped itself into a frenzy and Keith nearly toppled over, gritting his teeth as he braced himself against it. The Green Lion appeared from nowhere, jaw open and waiting, Hunk standing there waiting for them. Keith tried to grab Shiro and go, but Lance shoved him away and a moment later, Hunk was right there, yelling something at him as he and Lance moved to get Shiro on board. Keith stumbled onto the ramp just as more shouting, further away this time, sounded behind them.

‘Pidge, get us outta here!’ Lance yelled, and Keith fell over as the lion’s jaws closed and the earth fell away beneath them. ‘Hey.’ Keith looked up and saw Lance crouched down beside him with his helmet off. ‘How’re you doing, samurai?’ He smiled thinly. ‘Let’s get you inside properly so we can wormhole out of here.’ Without waiting for an answer, Lance scooped him up and carried him down the Green Lion’s gullet into the cargo hold.

Keith must have been losing more blood than he thought because he had to bite back the urge to laugh. ‘That’s the second time you’ve saved me like this,’ he said, then frowned. ‘Or, technically the first? Time travel is weird.’

‘Oh, you remember that?’ Lance asked. ‘You were pretty out of it.’

‘I remember.’

‘Also, technically, this is the third time since when you got yourself captured I was there twice.’

Lance set him down across several seats attached to one wall and knelt beside him, first aid kit in hand. He started doing something to Keith’s side that involved bandages, but Keith was too distracted by his proximity and pain to pay attention. Now that Keith could see his face properly under decent lighting, he realised Lance’s face was much paler than usual. ‘Listen, Keith, I wanted to talk to you about something. Now we’re getting Shiro back…’

Keith’s side twinged painfully in time with his chest. ‘What? What is it?’ He tried to sit up but Lance placed a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him in place.

‘McClain told me something you should know. I can't keep quiet anymore. ’

‘You were keeping quiet?’ Keith smirked but it turned into a grimace without his concent. For once, Lance didn’t rise to the bait.

‘He told me how you died. In the other timeline, reality, whatever.’

Keith sobered immediately. ‘You really want to do this _now_?’ he demanded.

Lance threw his hands up in the air. ‘Yes! Because you nearly got yourself killed! Again!’

‘That’s the job, Lance!’ Keith retorted, anger restoring some strength to his limbs. ‘We’re all in danger of dying out there! We talked about this-’

‘Yeah, I heard you the first time,’ Lance snapped. ‘Better you than one of us, I get it, but see, that’s not your call to make!’

‘I’m the Black Paladin!’ Keith argued. ‘That makes it my call!’

‘That’s not how Voltron works, and you know it!’ Lance cried. ‘You may be our leader, but you don’t have supreme authority over us and this team. You don’t have all the facts!’

‘Which are?’ Keith challenged.

‘I-’ Lance snapped his mouth shut so hard, Keith heard it click.

‘What is this really about, Lance?’ Keith growled, voice dropping dangerously. ‘What’s your problem?’

Lance went silent. When he spoke, his voice was so small, Keith could barely hear it. He said, ‘Please don’t leave.’

‘What?’

Lance cleared his throat. ‘Please don’t leave the team. Please.’

Keith blinked. Where had that come from? Why did Lance think he was going to leave? Sure, he’d wanted desperately to go on that disastrous mission to Keikrops, but leaving the _team_? ‘Why… why would I leave the team?’

Lance swallowed. ‘Because that’s what _he_ did. The other- McClain’s Keith. He left Voltron to join the Blade of Marmora and it got him killed.’

Oh. _Oh._ Keith tried to get his thoughts in order. ‘Did he say why?’

‘Because…’ Lance bit his lip. Keith stared at the flash of white teeth against brown skin when he could no longer look Lance in the eyes. ‘McClain, he said… he said that you-he- _his_ Keith didn’t think he had a choice. That he left because he thought he had to.’

Keith’s eyes widened as several things clicked into place in his head. Six pilots for five lions, Lance offering to step down. The pressure of being a leader- ‘The Black Lion. Akira said that Shiro, or the clone, I guess, would be able to pilot the Black Lion if I didn’t give her a choice.’

‘You really hate being the Black Paladin that much?’ Lance asked quietly.

‘I… I used to,’ Keith admitted. ‘I don’t know. After I talked with- with you and McClain about it, I thought maybe…’ he trailed off, unsure.

‘Maybe what?’

‘Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard after all? Maybe I- I… I don’t know. It just seemed so… impossible, you know? So overwhelming and I-’ Keith was cut off as his body spasmed with pain and the Green Lion shuddered around them. ‘I let the team down,’ Keith said, desperate, suddenly, to get this off his chest before he was forced into a healing pod. Lance lifted him gently into his arms. ‘I let you down. I took you away from Blue. I’m sorry.’  

The door to the cockpit opened and Lance strode through and down the ramp. ‘You’ve never let me or this team down,’ Lance said. ‘Never. So you have nothing to apologise for.’

They were met halfway down the ramp by Coran and Hunk with a floating gurney.

‘Keith, my boy!’ Coran cried. ‘What happened!’

Lance laid him down on the gurney. They were moving towards the medical bay in moments. ‘Misunderstanding with a few Garrison guards. He’ll be fine. The wound isn’t as serious as it looks.’

Keith winced. ‘Just hurts like a-‘

‘Shiro is already on his way to a healing pod until we’re ready for the transfer,’ Hunk reported. ‘Allura says she has a plan, but she needs to check a few things first and we don't want to do it before she's ready.’

‘Yes,’ Coran agreed. ‘That would be disastrous. Very messy.’

‘Wow, Coran, not helping,’ Lance muttered.

Keith tried to sit up, but two sets of hands held him down. ‘I promised I’d save him. I promised I’d bring him home.’

‘And we will,’ Coran said soothingly. ‘Just focus on healing yourself first, then we can worry about Shiro.’

Keith stared up at the ceiling as they passed over the threshold, Lance, Hunk and Coran’s serious faces hovering in his narrowing peripheral vision.

‘Keith! Is he alright?’ Allura’s voice sounded from somewhere to his left.

‘We’re here,’ Lance announced redundantly, flashing a disarming grin down at him. To Allura he said, ‘He’ll be fine after a few hours in the pod.’ He wrapped an arm under Keith’s shoulders and guided him upright.

Keith caught a glimpse of Allura and Pidge huddled around Shiro, lying on a bed with several monitors hovering over him as they talked in whispers.

‘We’ll talk later, okay?’ Lance whispered into Keith’s hair, helping him towards the healing pods. ‘Get better first.’

‘Right,’ Keith managed to mumble before the pod closed over his head and he was enveloped by the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sniper Lance with the infra-red or whatever it was in Season 7 killed me with all that positive klance interaction can you tell?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished and submitted my final uni assignment for the year this afternoon, so I'm posting this in celebration! Enjoy!

Allura took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was aware of the presences around her; Lance, his strong persona that had made an appearance during the week since the future team left finally cracking, shifting with nerves as they all waited on her. Hunk, clinging to Lance for dear life, trying not to sob. Pidge, still and silent, unable to look away from the scene. Coran, barely breathing at Allura’s side, one hand on her shoulder as she prepared herself for the task at hand.

The Black Lion, dormant without either of her paladins present, but still commanding the attention of the entire room, the way only she could.

Allura pressed her hands to the cool metal of the Black Lion’s jaw and breathed out. She reached out with her Quintessence, like she would when connecting with Blue, with the Castle of Lions, with the Balmera, opening herself up the way her father taught her. She could feel him there somehow, in the fabric of the castle, in the vast collective mind of Voltron, gone but not forgotten, silently offering the guidance and encouragement needed to dive into the Black Lion’s consciousness, past the infinite expanse to somewhere…  _ else. _

She couldn’t see, not like Keith had described, but she felt herself arrive in that space, she felt the moment Shiro- the truest form of him – recognised her. She was not a Black Paladin, but she was an alchemist; not a seeker, but a conduit. Shiro would have to come to her.  _ Please let him come to her _ . She reached out to him with her sense of Self, emptying her mind of all thought, all wants, all emotion but the feeling of  _ knowing _ him, and the desire to bring him home.

Something brushed against her quintessence and she seized it, gripped it tight and withdrew into herself. Feeling returned to her fingers and toes, creeping inward from her extremities to her core. She felt herself hum with energy, near full to bursting with quintessence, with  _ life _ . She felt her heart stutter in surprise that didn’t belong to her, felt her breath catch as hope that wasn’t hers ignited in her chest. She opened her eyes and the Black Lion’s hangar looked different; it glowed and pulsed with energy, the Black Lion at the centre of it all, and there, before her, Shiro’s body; oddly dull and faded compared to the rest of the room, lying on a gurney before her. Lifeless. Barely breathing.

Allura felt Shiro’s longing even as he tried to suppress it; felt his aching loneliness and the depth of his desperation surface at the sight of his own face until it was difficult to tell how much of that feeling was hers and how much was his. She stepped towards the body, the dark spot in the middle of a supernova, and touched her fingers to the temples. She reached out with her mind and found Blue watching intently from her own hangar. Allura anchored herself with her lion, let that connection that was solely  _ hers _ ground her in her own body in preparation, and then... she exhaled.

When she was most deeply connected to Blue, she felt like the crashing waves of the sea, the rushing of the river. She felt like the cold, cold shift of glaciers and the power that all those things possessed; eternal, unyielding, bright and clear. As she breathed out, she felt an echo of that feeling. The quintessence sluicing through her veins was not water but light, a crackling energy, lightning in a storm-

The Black Lion, and something else, perhaps Keith in his healing pod several floors down, but still connected, still helping, in his own way.

Intermingled and yet separate from the lightning flash of the storm that was Black Paladin and Lion, something else grew even brighter before her eyes. It was starlight, burning and scattered, coalescing and shifting into patterns- constellations, Lance had told her they were called once, that uniquely human thing- and then black clouds eclipsed the night. She shook with the force of the thunderclap. The Black Lion’s lightning flashed, and the thunder rumbled again as if in answer, sweeping through Allura like a storm rolling in. 

Then just as she felt she could no longer contain it,  _ there _ \- she felt the hook, that moment when soul recognised body. The stars fell from sky above, leaving her body the way rain leaves a storm cloud, crashing down to the ground, roaring all the way down, turning the air electric with the untamed power of it. Her hair stood on end and she breathed in the smell of ozone and metal, before the storm dissipated, clearing away to reveal sunny blue sky, and all that was left in Allura’s body was herself and her Lion’s gentle glacial presence. Slowly, she released her anchor-hold on Blue’s mind, and retreated fully into her body once more, blinking away the after image of stars as Shiro sucked in his first breath and sat up abruptly.

The hangar burst into action. Coran cried out in joy and wrapped his arms around her, a convenient cover for her shaking limbs as they tingled with the aftereffects of holding so much quintessence within her finite body and her brush with the Black Lion’s infinite mind. Pidge collapsed to her knees like one of her robots with its power cut and sobbed into her hands. Hunk jumped forward and caught Shiro as he coughed and sputtered back to life, then listed dangerously to one side, right into Hunk’s broad chest. Lance stepped deliberately up to Shiro’s other side and smiled down at him, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, but never falling.

‘Hey, Shiro,’ he murmured, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder.

Shiro’s eyes opened under newly white eyebrows and looked up at them all, taking careful stock of them one at a time. ‘You found me…’ he said. ‘Keith…’  he blinked and found Lance’s eyes. Allura saw the way his shoulders tensed in panic. ‘Lance, where’s Keith?’

Lance rolled his eyes, but the gesture was obviously for show, a subtle reassurance for their newly returned paladin. ‘We’ll take you to him in a minute, okay? He’s in a healing pod- like you should be, after everything your body has gone through. You’ll see him when you’re both awake and feeling better.’

Shiro nodded and leaned back against Hunk, too exhausted to question any further. Lance turned away from him and plucked Pidge right off the floor, pulling her to her feet so they could follow Hunk and Coran, who were slowly guiding Shiro and the gurney to the medical bay.

‘Hey.’ Allura looked down to see Shiro watching her with tired but happy eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Allura just smiled down at him. ‘You’re welcome, Shiro. Rest now.’

She stopped at the threshold to the medical bay and watched as the rest of the team helped Shiro into a healing pod. Her gaze drifted to the other occupied ones; from Keith, his expression more relaxed than she had seen in months, to the clone.

She couldn’t help the hurt that had surged up at the sight of his scarred, sleeping face, but it wasn’t the type of hurt she had expected. She didn’t feel hurt  _ by _ him, but  _ for _ him. To have her own mind twisted against her the way this man’s had been against him was unthinkable. That terrified little gasp of Keith’s name the moment he had been freed from Haggar’s spell echoed through her mind on a loop, her horror returning afresh with each replay.  He was a victim of Haggar’s just as much as they were, and seeing Shiro again, feeling him in his purest form the way she just had, all the goodness and trauma in him, had strengthened her resolve to never let that happen to any of them again. The people in the room in front of her, conscious and not, were the closest thing she had left to a family. She had failed to protect one family. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

* * *

Sound returned almost before awareness, first, a steady beep like an alarm, then, soft voices muffled as if filtered through glass; familiar, comforting, safe enough Shiro didn’t immediately try to open his eyes.

‘Are you ready for this?’ 

Lance. What was Lance doing here? Shiro could barely think but something wasn’t right so he waded through the fog, searching for a way back to full consciousness. Memories- or dreams?- flashed through the back of his mind, rapid-fire. Passing out at breakfast. Waking up in a healing pod… was he sick? He didn’t remember feeling unwell…

‘I’m more worried about him.’ That voice…

‘He’s unarmed. Literally. And we outnumber him six to one. If he freaks out we can take him, even without waking Keith.’

‘Hunk’s right,’ Pidge said, uncharacteristically quiet. Shiro could tell, even through the glass of the healing pod he realised he was in at the same moment. Why-

The fight in the medical bay.

He’d tried to  _ kill _ her-

No. Please, stars,  _ no _ -

He’d tried to kill  _ Keith. _

He’d hurt Allura and Coran.

And Lance had-

Shiro’s lungs seized in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He thrashed at the glass in front of his face but never felt the impact on his fist. Fresh panic cleared his vision enough to look at where his hand should be only to find empty air - when had he opened his eyes? There might have been shouting as the barrier dissolved in front of him, but Shiro was already stumbling forward, blindly pushing past a mass of bodies with his one arm, focused solely on the patch of grey he thought might have been the door and getting there as quickly as possible on legs like jelly.

Something snatched at his arm and he over-balanced, listing dangerously towards the floor, only to be caught by something else. A pair of muscular arms pinned Shiro’s one good one to his torso like a vice, and he couldn’t breathe through the restriction and blind panic. He lashed out, kicked at his captor with all his feeble strength until something swam into view, two bright splashes of colour against a backdrop of grey and metal.

‘Hey, it’s alright,’ Allura said and the bright spots blinked at him, coalescing into her distinctive turquoise irises. ‘You’re safe now. We freed you from Haggar’s influence. She will never control you again.’

‘ _ Ha-Haggar _ ?’ Shiro choked, nearly swallowing his tongue to get out the words.

Allura smiled and some more colour bled back into the world; the rich, warm tone of her skin, the brightness of her hair, then, beyond her, the cyan accents to the metal walls, and the pale faces of his team watching him like they would a wounded feral animal. Lance had his bayard out, dormant but ready. Hunk had placed himself protectively in front of Pidge and Coran. Pidge reluctantly met Shiro’s eyes with an absent minded hand brushing against her throat.

Shiro fought the urge to be sick.

‘What- I-’ Shiro shut his eyes tightly against the pain in his chest and focused on trying to take a deep breath, willing his head to clear and his pulse to stop pounding in his ears hard enough to drown out just about everything else. When he didn’t feel like he was on the verge of passing out, he scanned the room again. ‘Where’s Keith?’ he begged, the image of his own galra hand careening towards Keith’s head threatening to send him into another panic. ‘He’s- I didn’t- did  _ I _ -?’

‘He’s okay,’ Lance said, and stepped aside, revealing Keith’s sleeping face in his own healing pod.

‘Oh,  _ God-’ _

‘No, no, no, you didn’t do this,’ Lance clarified, stepping up to Allura’s side with his hands out in a flurry of calming gestures Shiro’s eyes could barely follow. ‘Stupid mullet got hit on a mission. Standard deal. He’ll be fine.’

‘A mission,’ Shiro repeated. Lance nodded.

Slowly, Shiro felt the panic and adrenaline leech out of his body, and any structural integrity he had gained in his legs went with it.

‘Oh!’ Coran spoke up for the first time, disentangling himself from Hunk’s grip and dashing towards him as the world spun. ‘Lay him out on this,’ he suggested, dragging the floating gurney they used in emergencies into view.

Shiro felt whoever was holding onto him nod and together the stranger and Allura lowered him onto it into a slumped sitting position. ‘Who…’ Shiro slurred, then blinked and tried again. ‘Who’s th…’

The stranger stepped out from behind him and Shiro saw his face for the first time. His jaw dropped as a pair of black eyes studied him suspiciously, the same arms that had rendered him immobile minutes ago now crossed over a broad chest. He looked… like McClain and Garrett and the Paladins from the alternate reality. Instantly recognisable, eerily so, but different, too; older, more worn down.

Shiro had selfishly thought that he had been spared seeing that look on his own face when Lance had stepped out of the Black Lion. Apparently, the multiverse had other plans for him.

‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

Pidge stepped forward, moving for the first time since Shiro had spotted her. She didn’t meet his eyes, but held out her hand, palm up, like an offering. Nestled there was a tiny black earth-made USB. ‘It may be better if we showed you.’

* * *

They spared the clone the details, for which Allura suspected everyone else was grateful. He took the news in silence, nodding at the correct moments, and staring fixedly at the screen to avoid everyone else’s eyes. He sat and listened with slumped shoulders and a hard, almost vacant expression that made Allura’s heart ache. When they got to the part of the story where Lance talked them through how Keith came about the information that proved vital to bringing Shiro home, the clone stood, clenched his one remaining fist, turned and walked out of the room.

‘Hey, wait,’ Hunk blurted, but Shiro placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘It’s a lot to take in,’ he said gently. ‘Leave him be for a while.’

Pidge tapped on her pad for a minute, then said into the silence, ‘Keith will be waking up in ten doboshes. We should get going.’

Lance leaped out of his chair like he’d been electrocuted. ‘Pidge! Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘I just did!’

He grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the room, shouting, ‘Come on!’

Shiro met Allura’s eyes and for a moment, she could almost feel a ghost of that connection they had shared as she returned him to his own body, a sort of deep understanding passing between them as their eyes locked.

‘Go,’ Allura said. ‘Reunite with Keith. I’ll take care of this.’

Shiro smiled. ‘Thank you, Princess.’ Allura watched him go, talking quietly to Hunk as they followed Lance and Pidge down the hall to where Keith would be waiting.

As they disappeared around the corner, Allura set out down the hall, turning in the opposite direction, towards the elevators.

She didn’t know what made her so certain she was heading in the right direction, but she indicated the floor she wanted without hesitation. Perhaps, she thought, it was Blue’s influence. The Blue Lion was the most deeply connected to the emotional needs of Team Voltron. As a leg, she and her paladin served as the support the entire team could fall back on in times of crisis; adaptable as water, ready to fill whatever role was required of them, the one concerned with all the things strategy can’t account for.

Like grief.

Like love.

Perhaps, she wondered, it was that glimpse of possibility she had been gifted with by the arrival of the paladins from another reality, the promise of a family propelling her down the corridor towards the Black Lion’s hangar.

The Black Lion was exactly where they had left her, eyes dim, but Allura imagined she could feel the magnificent creature’s gaze on them nonetheless. The clone sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the lion, hunched in on himself like he was protecting a wounded limb. Silently as she could, Allura came to sit beside him. She took a deep breath and waited for him to flinch or move away, but he stayed where he was, the barely-there shaking of his shoulders and ragged breathing the only clues he was crying into his hand.

Allura kept her gaze fixed on the Black Lion but reached out with one hand until she found his knee, gently brushing over the bone of his kneecap with her thumb. He sucked in a startled breath at the contact but didn’t move. Allura decided to take that as a positive sign.

Allura didn’t know how long it took before his sobs quietened into silent tears. She wanted to reach out and hug him but wasn’t sure how well he would react to the contact, so she contented herself with waiting for him to give her some sort of indication.

Eventually, he said, ‘You knew.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You, future you knew the truth about me and she didn’t say anything.’

‘She didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘How could she do that? How could she let me put all of you at risk like that? I could have killed you.’

‘She told us.’

‘ _ Akira _ told you.’

Allura shifted so she was facing him more fully. Even in profile, he looked awful. His face was pale and blotchy, his eyes red from tears, staring at a point on the floor between his knees. ‘Because she loves you.’

He flinched at the words. ‘Akira loves her dad. She loves Shiro, not… Not me. I’m a- I’m just a copy. A fake.’

‘That’s not true.’

He looked up at her for the first time and Allura held her breath at the sight. He looked more unguarded than she had ever seen him before, stripped of his armour by the truth that had changed everything. ‘How can you say that? Future you lied to me. She said I would always be a paladin. She said-’ he choked and had to take several deep breaths to compose himself again. ‘She knew I was a copy and she told me that I was forgiven anyway. How could she lie?’

Allura lost the war she had been waging against herself and reached out, shifting so she was kneeling on the hangar floor and dragged her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into her. ‘She didn’t lie,’ she said, threading her fingers through his hair. ‘You  _ are _ forgiven. Nothing that happened was your fault. And…’ she smiled down at him and he blinked in surprise. ‘You are more than just a copy.’

‘How… do you know?’ he asked cautiously, almost timidly, but his eyes had brightened for the first time since he’d awoken.

Allura brought her hands to either side of his face and closed her eyes. ‘You are a living creature,’ she said, her Self expanding as she drew in quintessence from around them. ‘Living creatures have quintessence, but no living creature’s quintessence is exactly like another’s.’ 

Just as she felt she was about to burst, she reached out and brushed against his own quintessence, just enough to feel it brush against hers, and for him to feel it too. ‘You and Shiro are alike enough that The Black Lion would have chosen you eventually if Keith stepped down,’ she said, curiosity raising its head as she pressed more firmly against his Self. It unfurled under her touch, revealing itself little by little. The smell of rain and the tingle of ozone on her skin. The clap of thunder and the rush of the wind… It made sense that if Keith and the Black Lion were lightning, the original Shiro was the clap of thunder, a storm rolling in, and his clone… the man under her hands was the rain; torrential, unrelenting, a swirling flurry of water and fresh, blessed cold. Energy and destruction, creation and life all rolled into one tumultuous presence. 

‘You’re not identical where it matters,’ Allura murmured, partially to prevent herself getting swept away with the storm. ‘You are your own person. I can see it.’

She brushed her Self against his again, this time with purpose. She soothed around the edges of the tempest, slowing the winds, softening the rain until the storm had calmed into something more pleasant, less destructive.

He let out a long, exhausted sigh and rested his forehead on her shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ he breathed, and this time his voice was steady. Allura retreated back into her own body, let the tension leave her as she wrapped him up in a gentle embrace. One of her hands returned to his hair, the other gently running up and down his back as they both breathed.

‘You don’t have to stay,’ she said after a long but comfortable silence. He tensed for a moment and she squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. ‘But you don’t have to be alone.’

‘You have the real me back. You don’t need me anymore.’

Allura shook her head. ‘Voltron is a family, my  _ only _ family. I can’t speak for the rest of the team, but if you wanted to try, I’d be willing to find you a place in it.’

After a moment’s hesitance, he nodded into her shoulder. Allura breathed out a sigh of relief she had been holding onto for far too long. It was a start, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter of this story is being difficult. It's really stumping me suddenly and I don't know why. I'll get it up as soon as I can, but between this weird writer's block problem and studying for exams, I can't say when that would be.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise? Study week is about to start for me and I was hit with sudden inspiration yesterday so I wrote all of this in a few hours and figured I'd get this done before exams started. This final chapter is short- just to wrap up really, but I like where it ended so hopefully you'll all forgive me.
> 
> So, for the last time, enjoy!

Shiro watched Lance and Pidge bound ahead of their little group and practiced breathing again. He relished in the air moving into his lungs, the pulse in his neck when he rubbed at it absently. He smiled at the slightly chill feeling of the Castle’s recycled air on his skin, the pull of muscles inShiro watched Lance and Pidge bound ahead of their little group and practiced breathing again. He relished in the air moving into his lungs, the pulse in his neck when he rubbed at it absently. He smiled at the slightly chill feeling of the Castle’s recycled air on his skin, the pull of muscles in his limbs as he walked down the hall on legs that still felt slightly shaky, despite a clean bill of health and several hours of practice pacing as his team updated him on the situation and waited for his clone to wake up from his stint in the healing pod. 

His  _ clone _ . That was an issue he had no desire to go into anytime soon- if ever- so he pushed it back into the recesses of his mind and focused on the excited figures in front of him. Pidge was starting to complain about being dragged along, but Lance, predictably, wasn’t listening, skidding to a halt at the door to the medical bay with a few minutes to spare. Hunk and Coran fell into step at his side as they watched their friends run ahead.

‘How long?’ Lance demanded and Shiro quirked an eyebrow at his eagerness. Things had changed since he had been flung right out of the universe, and he was still catching up. It was going to take time to relearn the intricacies of these people he was fighting alongside.

‘A few doboshes,’ Coran answered, stepping past Lance and into the room, where he started pressing buttons for no reason Shiro could discern.

‘Are they okay?’ Shiro murmured to Hunk, nodding in Lance and Pidge’s direction.

Hunk shrugged. ‘I don’t know how much you picked up while the other team Voltron was here, but we all got some pretty bad news and we’re all dealing with it in different ways. Lance spent a lot of time talking to McClain - his... Counterpart - and it’s made him realise a few things. Hopefully for the better. We all learned things from our other versions, but Lance is the one who has really acted on it.’

‘What did he learn?’ Shiro asked, theories beginning to swirl in the back of his mind.

Hunk averted his gaze, shifting awkwardly. ‘I don’t know, man, that’s not for me to tell. You should ask him.’

Shiro hummed. ‘That’s fair enough. What did you learn?’

A smile crept onto Hunk’s face. ‘That there’s more to me than I thought was possible. That I… I can have what I’ve always wanted if I’m open to it.’

‘I’m happy for you, Hunk.’ Shiro clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You deserve it.’

Hunk’s grin turned a little wry. ‘Hey, you too, man! I mean, you and Allura-’

‘No, that’s not-’ Shiro derailed that train of thought before it could go any further. ‘I think someone has their wires crossed there.’

Hunk frowned, brows mashing together. ‘How do you mean?’

Shiro shrugged. ‘We’re friends, I care about her, just not… in that way.’

Hunk sighed. ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘Your daughter was really cool.’

‘She’s not mine,’ Shiro said trying not to let his regret shine through.

Hunk cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not yet.’

Lance let out a shout and the healing pod beeped. Shiro looked up to see Keith stumbling out, rubbing his head, messing up his hair with a scrunched-up expression on his face. Lance leapt forward and scooped him up into a suffocating hug before the poor kid had a chance to take more than a step. ‘Keith, oh my God, you're going to send me to an early grave! Please stop nearly dying.’

‘Lance,’ Keith tried but Lance obviously wasn't done yet. 

‘No seriously, man I'm getting grey hairs! Look!’ Lance released Keith with one hand, tugging on his hair for emphasis and Keith took the opportunity to disentangle himself and take a few dazed steps backwards. 

Shiro couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Well, that's a sight I didn't think I’d live to see.’

Keith looked up and Shiro saw the moment he recognised him, his expression morphing into surprised joy. ‘I told you I’d bring you home,’ he grinned and stepped around Lance, one arm extended.

Shiro gripped his forearm and tugged him forward, crushing him in another bone-breaking hug. Keith clung back just as tightly. ‘I never doubted you for a second,’ Shiro told him. It was true. Once Keith had proved not all hope was lost, Shiro hadn’t doubted his ability to lead the team in bringing him home.

Keith’s smile turned teasing as he pulled away and Shiro felt a rush of joy and dread. He hadn’t seen that expression on the kid’s face for far too long. ‘Well, it wasn't just me. Adam and the team helped a little.’

Shiro's brain stuttered at the name.  _ ‘What _ _?’_

Keith shrugged. ‘Ran into him at the Garrison. He helped me save your life.’

Shiro blinked. He could almost picture it, this older, wiser version of Keith working together with the love of Shiro’s life to keep their little family together. ‘Oh,’ was he said. ‘No one told me.’

Keith smirked. ‘I didn't tell them. None of their business.’ 

Shiro nodded a few times to clear his head, a smile slowly creeping back onto his face despite the sudden ache in his chest. ‘Alright then. You should probably get some rest. Those healing pods really take it out of you.’

Keith glanced back at the team huddled and whispering behind him. ‘Yeah, in a minute.’

Shiro knew that look, so he just gave Keith an encouraging nod. ‘Go ahead, I’ll be here.’

He looked back at Shiro and for a moment, his eyes clouded over. ‘You know, for a while there… I thought there was something wrong with us. With the clone, I mean. He wasn’t you. I wish I had realized it sooner. We felt… broken, somehow. I couldn’t figure it out.’

‘Keith…’ Shiro sighed and placed his flesh hand on Keith’s shoulder. ‘You did nothing wrong. You couldn’t have known.’

‘I know, but…’

Shiro gently squeezed his neck to get Keith to look back up at him. ‘I made a promise to you a long time ago. You’re my brother, Keith. I love you. I won’t give up on you. Ever.’

Keith nodded, blinking hard. ‘We won’t give up on each other,’ he corrected.

‘That’s right,’ Shiro agreed. ‘Now, go say hi to the others and then get some rest, kid.’

Keith squared his shoulders like he was going into battle and turned to greet the rest of the paladins. Hunk pulled him into another hug, but to Keith’s obvious relief, released him quickly. Pidge spoke quietly to him and Shiro watched the lines of Keith’s body soften as he ruffled her hair.

Keith and Lance shared a look and Shiro felt a jolt of pride as he realised those two had somehow passed the silent communication stage while he’d been gone.

Things had changed. They had grown, adapted, gone on without him. The ugly, selfish part of Shiro regretted that a tiny bit. What he remembered from his time in the arena were dark, lonely, impossible days. He had missed being connected to other people, being needed.

But the universe had asked them to go on without him and they had, with great success. The majority of Shiro swelled with pride at that. He could live with being unnecessary if it meant his family was whole and happy, and the universe remained in good hands.

He had seen so many things during his time in the world between worlds, enough to know that everything was as it should be.

For now.

* * *

  
Keith found Lance in the observation deck on the tallest spire of the castle, near the Black Lion’s hangar, after dinner. It was smaller than the bridge, sparsely furnished with a console facing the biggest wall and a chair pushed into a corner. The console was dead, but the window was opened to its largest setting, and there were oh-so-many stars.

Nebulae, supernovas, white dwarfs, far-off sprinkles of stardust all tumbling through the vast black void. Lance sat cross-legged in the centre of the room, facing the window with starlight illuminating his face. Keith had to take a moment to remember how to breathe. He was drawn into the room by that view of the stars, the only thing besides the vast expanse of red desert and fresh clean air that had ever felt like home, and of Lance.

He had wanted to talk to Lance. He knew they should, there were things that had to be said, acknowledgements to be made, understandings to be reached, but as the silence stretched on, Keith couldn’t bring himself to shatter the fragile peace of the moment.

Everything they had was fragile in this war. Nothing more so than peace. Their recent visitors had been a harsh reminder of that. For all of Keith’s restless energy, all his fiery instinct and newly forged lightning-strike soul, he had always loved the quiet.

And quiet with Lance… that was a rare treasure.   
Keith stepped up beside him and sat down, barely a foot of space between them. It was just narrow enough that a friend would probably shift slightly further away, but close enough someone… else might close the gap.

Lance didn’t make any sound to acknowledge his presence, as if he too was aware of what a fragile, precious thing this silence was. He never took his eyes off the beautiful, distant chaos of the universe and Keith found himself doing the same, taking in the impossibility of it all, the simple beauty of those pinpricks of light set against dark splashes of colour. He spotted a bright blue speck of light and started picking out constellations around it, tracing a line of stars through the endless tapestry of sky to a red giant on the other side.

A warm, calloused hand slid over Keith’s. Without looking he turned it over, palm up, so those long fingers could twine with his. Lance rubbed his thumb over a spot on the back of Keith’s hand, near the fading pink reminder of his confinement on Keikrops. Keith hadn’t put his gloves on since he’d come out of the pod. He suddenly felt naked without them, exposed by the touch. It felt like he was back in the Black Lion with McClain again, fighting his own stubbornness to let down his walls and create something new, something better.   
Finally, Lance spoke, oblivious- or not- to Keith’s internal struggle.

‘It’s… weird having two of him around, isn’t it?’

Keith wanted to look over, to see his facr, but he kept his gaze fixed on the stars drifting past where it felt safer. ‘It was weird having two of you around,’ he said quietly. ‘But I got used to it.’

Lance paused. ‘I… I wish I could have met future you.’

Keith glared at the window as if he could resurrect his future self with a look if it meant soothing away the tremor in Lance’s voice. ‘Lance, that’s…’

‘I know,’ Lance murmured. 

Keith took a deep breath. ‘It doesn’t matter now anyway,’ he said. He felt Lance shift suddenly and finally, Keith found the courage to turn and look.    
Lance’s face was a study in contrast. One side of his face was bathed in pale light, the other cut with deep shadows. His eyes were wide, pleading, but his mouth was pressed thin and tight, like he was swallowing a million words that wanted to spill forth, the way they often did. 

Keith squeezed his hand once and put as much conviction into his words as he could muster. ‘I am not going anywhere.’

It was as close to a promise as Keith could make. Lance’s expression flickered like he knew it. He swallowed. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘I do,’ Keith insisted, ‘It’s my choice. I’m choosing to stay.’

Lance looked down at their joined hands, studying them. ‘I don’t think I can lose you like McClain did.’

‘You could,’ Keith answered. ‘McClain did, and he still went on to become the Black Paladin.’   
Lance shook his head. ‘McClain and his Keith never…’

Something shot down Keith’s spine like lightning at the phrase his Keith, like the one who’d died in that other reality had belonged to that Lance somehow, like the unspoken pair to that statement implied that Lance thought of Keith as his in some way.

Keith reached out with his free hand and threaded his fingers through Lances hair, the short, soft strands right behind his ear. Lance gently leaned into the touch but didn't look up even when Keith shifted closer.

‘Lance,’ he said. Lance gripped Keith's fingers tighter, his free hand fisting in the fabric of his jeans. ‘Lance,’ Keith repeated, and when Lance didn't move this time Keith slid the hand in his hair down the side of his face to the sharp point of his chin and tilted it up until their eyes met. ‘Do you trust me?’ Keith whispered.

Lance squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again slowly. The blue of his irises was almost black in this light, and Keith briefly acknowledged that it suited him the way most things suited Lance: perfectly.

‘Yes,’ Lance murmured, and Keith’s heart pounded in his chest as he made up his mind. That word felt like a call to action and Keith obeyed, using that hand still under his chin to guide his face forward.

The kiss was like a night in the desert; quiet, clear and gentle. Endlessly long and over too soon all at once. 

When they parted, Lance rested his forehead against Keith’s, eyes still closed and smiled. ‘I told you, I can’t lose you now.’

‘You’re just going to have to trust me not to leave, then, aren’t you?’ Keith replied, just as softly.   
Lance tilted his face to kiss Keith again, firmer this time, more confident. ‘I guess so.’

This was war, and Keith knew that came with no guarantees, but whatever the future held, they would tackle it together. Keith was the Black Paladin, and Lance was his centre of gravity. Together, they would make sure that everyone made it home safely, whatever the future had in store. That was enough. It had to be. They deserved that much.

Right then, though, it didn’t matter. Right then, the only thing in the universe was Lance and everything else would have to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much to everyone who had stuck with me and my awful updating schedule throughout, to everyone who left comments or kudos, you are all awesome and responsible for many many awkward-to-explain smiles. 
> 
> Shout out to my good friend and sometimes-co-author [manmehakkaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manmehakkaur/pseuds/manmehakkaur) (check out our ongoing Percy Jackson/VLD Crossover Series [Say Hello to the Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/series/878055) for more Voltron fancontent) for dealing with my long rants about this fic and helping me sort out where I wanted to go with it.
> 
> If you want more from this AU, either our "canon" team, McClain's team, the fight against the Great Altean Commonwealth, or anything else - leave a comment here or head over to my [tumblr](https://seethestarsalittlecloser.tumblr.com/) and PM me or send me an ask and I'll do my best to deliver. I have so many ideas, I just don't want to waste time writing them if no one's interested, so let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the chapter re: Major Character Death:  
> Future Voltron is from 18 years in the future and they've suffered fatalities.  
> Keith was killed on a mission with the Blade of Marmora before the war with the Galra ended. Pidge was killed nearly 15 years after Keith died and the war with the Galra was won, on a mission against the threat Future!Team Voltron is facing.
> 
> On the Future!Team Voltron's line-up:
> 
> Lance became the Black Paladin after it was revealed Shiro was a clone and they got the real Shiro back. Real Shiro didn't return to them entirely intact and so with Keith gone, Lance took up the responsibilities of Black Paladin. Keith never returned to the team.
> 
> By the time Pidge dies, Lotor has defected to the Voltron Coalition, settled on earth with the other Paladins after the war, and spent 15 years pursuing his passion of scientific research, especially on quintessence as an energy source and its sustainable use. When Pidge dies, the Green Lion chooses Lotor to continue her legacy.
> 
> The Blue Lion is piloted by Akira, daughter of Allura and (real) Shiro, who are married. She was born on Earth over a year after the dissolution of the Galra Empire and is the most recent addition to Voltron, being chosen as the pilot of the Blue Lion only after the new war broke out and they needed Voltron again.


End file.
